People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria

Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research

8 MAY 1945 UNIVERSITY / GUELMA ‫ قالمة‬1945 ‫ ماي‬8 ‫جامعة‬
FACULTY OF LETTERS AND LANGUAGES ‫كلية اآلداب و اللغات‬
DEPARTMENT OF LETTERS & ENGLISH LANGUAGE ‫قسم اآلداب و اللغة اإلنجليزية‬

Option : Literature

The (Re)construction of Identity in Haruki

Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore

A Dissertation Submitted to the Department of Letters and English Language in Partial

Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master in Language and Culture

Submitted by: Supervised by:

Abir OUNISSI Ms. Khawla BENDJEMIL
Marwa GUEBAILIA

BOARD OF EXAMINERS

Chairwoman: Ms. Soumia MOUMENE (MAA) University de 8 Mai 1945/Guelma

Supervisor: Ms. Khawla BENDJEMIL (MAA) University de 8 Mai 1945/Guelma

Examiner: Mrs. Houda BOURSACE (MAA) University de 8 Mai 1945/Guelma

September 2020
 I

Dedication

Praise be to Allah for the guidance and the luck.

I would like to wholeheartedly dedicate this work to everyone mentioned bellow. Your

prayers, wishes and heartwarming talks at stressful times really encouraged me to

maximize my efforts.

The greatest and coolest father in the world; the man I cannot live without.

The Queen: my mother; the woman I wake up every day thankful that I have.

I cannot ask for more as parents

My brother Rahim; the man who helps me even at the harshest circumstance he faces.

Thank you for being the best brother in the world.

My sister Bouchra; the funniest person with whom I fight, laugh and enjoy my time. I

am lucky to be your sister.

My friends Achref, Anissa, Selma, Hiba, Hiba Warda and to my friend/teacher

Mohammed who always backed me up with information and pleasant talks at this year.

To my coworker Abir who was not only a hard worker, but also a supportive friend who

has always been here at hardships enriching my atmosphere with positivity.

To all people that love me and care about me including relatives, neighbors and

classmates.

To all people who seek being the best version of their identities.

Marwa
 II

Dedication

First of all, I would like to thank my almighty God for providing me with the strength

and the health to finish this work in this difficult year of pandemic and quarantine.

I dedicate this humble research to my girl Marwa Guebailia who has been such a great

partner and a lovely friend.

I dedicate this literary work to my teachers and guiders: Miss Amel Chiheb and Miss

Soumia Moumene for making me fall in love with the world of literature and for

predicting my path before I have known it myself.

I would also dedicate this thesis and my university journey to my father Ahmed Ounissi

who supported me and woke up with me every Sunday at 5: am for five years, without

forgetting my lovely mother Assia Ounissi who believed in my capacities and my choices.

Also, I want to thank my sisters, Khawla and Maryam for accepting all my

psychological fluctuations.

I also, want to thank my oldest friend and supporter Ghorab Abderrahim for having my

back all these years despite the distance.

Without forgetting my classmates and my best friends Maissa, Amel, Zakaria, Ayoub,

Ala and Aymen for making the hardest moments of this journey funny and lovely …

and for all the awkward memories.

Love you all, ABIR

 III

Acknowledgements

First of all, we are gratefully indebted to Allah’s guidance to be able to fulfill this

humble dissertation. We are thankful for His mercy to overcome this year without being lost

or losing our lovers.

Secondly, we would love to express our deep appreciation to our supervisor Ms.

Khawla BENDJEMIL. for accepting and supporting our unusual topic and ideas. We want to

thank this exceptional lady for believing in our capacities and the possibility of finishing this

dissertation despite all the obstacles. Also, we would like to show our respect to her for

calming us down in our most stressful moments.

Third, we would love to thank all our teachers of Guelma University at the English

department for helping us reach our academic goals besides illuminating our minds and

encouraging us discover ourselves. We would also like to thank Ms. Soumia MOUMENE and

Mrs. Houda BOURSACE for taking the time and the effort to evaluate this work.
 IV

Abstract

When Japan finally steps forward to build a new nation after its massive losses

because of the two World Wars, the country had not only to deal with the major economic

recession but also with its society. The various changes the Japanese have lived since the end

of Edo period: an era that is characterized by a sense of isolation and a limited contact with

the Western world made them forget their traditional principles and stick to the concept of

collectivism to construct their identities. Now, despite the national stability the society is

enjoying, the Japanese young adult struggles daily with social and psychological factors to

build his identity. Under such circumstances, Haruki Murakami is one of the best writers who

concerns himself in tackling expecially the issue of identity in depth especially in his novel

Kafka on the Shore (2005). For this reason, this study aims to examine the issue of identity

construction from a psychological perspective. Its objective is to explore the impact of the

psychological factors: Oedipus complex, dreams interpretation and trauma in building and

destroying the protagonists’ personalities. It also purses to shed light on the necessity of

healing the human internal flaws to have a healthy soul.

 V

Table of Contents

Dedication………………………………………………………………………………………I

Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………..…………… III

Abstract …………………………………………………………………………...……...…...IV

Introduction ……………………………………………………………………...…………….1

Chapter One: Socio-Historical and Theoretical Foundations

I.1. An Overview of Contemporary Japanese Society…………………………………...…… 5

I.2. The Theme of Identity in Contemporary Japanese Literature……………...…....………11

I.3.The Theme of Identity in Kafka on The Shore ………….……………...….……...…...... 15

I.2. Overview of the Psychoanalytic Theory ………………….……………….………….19

I.2.1. The Oedipus Complex …………………………….…….……………………………. 21

I.2.2. Dreams Interpretation……………………………….………………....…………….…24

I.2.3. Trauma ………………………………………………………………….……………...27

Chapter Two: A Psychoanalytical Reading of the First Protagonist Kafka Tamura

II.1. The Relationship Between Haruki Murakami and his Novel: Kafka on the Shore ...…...31

II.2. The Effect of the Oedipus Complex on Kafka’s Identity…………………………..……35

II.3. The Effect of Dreams on the Identity of Kafka Tamura …………..…………….……...44

Chapter Three: The Effect of Traumatic Experiences on Nakata Satoru’s Identity

Construction

III.1 The Impact of Traumatic Experiences on Nakata Satoru………………….……….55

III.1.1. The Impact of Trauma on Nakata’s Memory………………..……...….….…..60

 VI

III I.2. The Impact of Trauma on Nakata’s Behavior ……….…….………...………….……63

III.2. Nakata Satoru’s Identity Between the Past and the Present ………………………68

III.2.1. Satoru Nakata’s Identity before November 7th ,1944 ……………………….……….68

III.2.2 Nakata’s Identity after November 7th, 1944 …………………………….…….……...70

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………….…………...81

Works Cited…………………………………………………………………………..……... 87

Abstract in Arabic………………………………….…………………………………...…….95
 1

Introduction

The quest of identity has always been a problematic issue in contemporary literature.

Especially, when the main challenge of the contemporary individual became recognizing

himself and constructing his identity in the middle of an unbounded world. Hence, each

individual in the new generation is daily exposed to new concepts and ideas in religion,

culture, and ethnicity that makes him psychologically struggle during constructing a natural

identity. This struggle results in a human the need to find a space where a person can express

his psychological and emotional fluctuations freely. Fortunately, literature serves this purpose

perfectly, because it offers a literary space that reflects the human nature with all of its

blunders. Its major goal is helping any person in whatever region of the earth to explore his

identity and to see himself in a piece of work: a novel, a poem, or even a painting.

In the last few decades, the theme of identity became a central preoccupation within

contemporary literary studies. Modern writers insist on being the voice of the modern

generation during its hunts for individuality. They try to create a strong impression of this

theme through presenting characters with several identity issues. Certainly, the Japanese

literature is not an exception (Fantiu 61). Due to the national progress of the country, Japanese

literary production focuses more on the social phenomenon. Also, they generously discuss the

identity conflict that has become increasingly internal because there is no longer an outside

adversary. Japanese authors such as Junichiro Tanizaki, Yakio Mishima, Kobo Abe and

Haruki Murakmi have chosen to highlight the isolation problem and to identify the self-

identity to prove the ability of the single character in being a whole community for himself.

(62)
 2

Haruki Murakami, a valuable name in Japanese contemporary literature, is an

international successful writer that sells one million copy in the first day of publication.

Murakami is well-known for his sense of alienation and his existential style. His writing

generally treats themes of isolation, loneliness and identity. In order to illustrate the

personality loss and self-search issue of Japanese young adults, Murakami in Kafka on the

Shore (2005) develops a complex plot that revolves around two protagonists. A fifteen-year-

old boy, Kafka Tamura, who flees from his father’s house in Tokyo to escape a gruesome

oedipal prophecy and to search for his long missing mother and sister. Satoru Nakata, an old

Japanese man who lost his memory and personality because of traumatic events. Kafka runs

to a shore of a village called Takamatsu on the island of Shikoku and settles in a privately-

owned library. During his journey, everyone he meets seems leading him to his Oedipal

destiny, especially Miss Saeki that gives him a tactile sensation of old connection and makes

him experiences a sexual feeling for her yet at the same time thoughts that she maybe his

mother. Soon Kafka believes that he cannot fight his destiny assuming that he has to fulfill it.

In the meantime, Satoru Nakata is introduced in the plot, an old man who has lived a tragic

accident at the age of nine. This accident causes him a mental handicap, and makes him lose

the ability to understand abstract concepts, and sometimes speaks in the third person, which

many people he meets find disconcerting. It also gives him a wonderful gift –the ability to talk

to cats. Nakata uses this talent in helping people recover their lost pets. In one of his cat

finding missions, he leaves Tokyo and ends up in Takamastu where he meets Hoshino, a man

who never had time to delve deeper into his life. Hoshino follows Nakata in his bizarre trip

and discovers his own self-realization. The series of strange events make Nakata solve the

secret of Miss Saeki, kills Kafka’s father who lives another life as cat’s hunter using another

personality and name, and helps in Kafka’s release. Therefore, the characters live different

emotional and mental instabilities, where they keep moving in and out of their dreams. They
 3

find themselves dealing with important identity crises because of the confusion between

conscious real life actions and unconscious desires they dreamed of. Kafka on The Shore is

one of Haruki Murakami literary works that perfectly captures the theme of identity

reconstruction and investigates the effect of the psychological aspects in determining an

individual personality.

The purpose of this research is therefore to investigate the concept of identity

formation in Haruki Murakami’s novel Kafka on The shore through examining the

protagonists’ sense of maturity, and the different means they use to overcome all the

circumstances that may negatively affect their identities construction. Additionally, the

second major objective of this dissertation is the analysis of the psychological factors that

play a significant role in helping the protagonists recognizing themselves as individuals. This

analysis gives logical explanation to the way events take place in the novel. Moreover, this

research also aims to identify the interconnectedness between the internal psychological

problems and the individual’s attitude toward life barriers. As a long term goal this study

tends to be a positive addition to all researches done on Murakami novel to provide a further

understanding of his unique vision.

This research follows the psychoanalytical approach as an essential method to reach

its goal. The reason behind depending on this approach is that it is the only literary technique

that offers suitable materials that encourages the analysis of the protagonists’ identities

vicissitudes in the novel of Kafka on the Shore. Likewise, this method is based on

psychoanalytical Freudian theories that cope with the main focus of this study which is

examining the impact of Oedipus complex, dreams and trauma on the main characters’

attitudes. As a plus, the psychoanalytical approach makes this study more interesting when it

reveals the way the unconscious mechanisms of the characters’ work.

 4

The present dissertation is divided into three chapters. The first chapter is a socio-

historical and theoretical framework composed of two major sections. The first section

supplies a brief overview of the contemporary Japanese society. It describes the conditions

that have resulted from the crises of identity to the modern Japanese during the country’s

development. Moreover, this section investigates the concept of identity as main theme in the

contemporary Japanese literature and how it is represented by the Japanese literary figures.

Moreover, it highlights this theme form Haruki Murakami’s point of view to understand the

methods he uses to build characters that reflect the identity struggle of the Japanese in his

novel Kafka on the Shore. The second section deals with specific notions of the

psychoanalytical literary theory. It discusses the fundamental concepts that this research

utilizes in the analysis of the novel’s characters: Oedipus complex, interpretation of dreams

and trauma.

For Chapter Two, it stands as the first analytical chapter of this dissertation. This

chapter is divided into two sections. It starts with a general analysis of the life of the first

protagonist, Kafka Tamura, as a model of a young adult Japanese man. Then, the character’s

actions are analyzed from a psychoanalytical perspective emphasizing on the role of the

Oedipus complex using the Freudian theory. Within the same analytical way, the second

section examines the psychological effect of dreams on the protagonist decisions depending

on the interpretation of dreams theory. The analysis of these two psychological aspects should

lead to the understanding of Kafka identity. Where the results of analysis show the deep

impact of these aspects on the journey of pain and healing of Kafka’s personality.

The third chapter is a continuity to the previous chapters of the current study. It is a

second analytical chapter which explores a different character with a different psychological

struggle. It investigates the life of Satoru Nakata, who represents the second protagonist of the

novel from a psychoanalytical perspective. The chapter defines the war and the childhood
 5

violence as the major traumas in the character’s life. Furthermore, it clarifies the negative

influence of these traumas at the mental and behavioral capacities, and explains the different

changes that have taken a place in Nakata’s personality because of these traumatic events.

This chapter appraises the traumatic experiences of the Nakata character as the primary cause

behind his emptiness and loss.

 6

Chapter One: Socio-Historical and Theoretical Foundations

The first chapter of this dissertation presents its socio-historical and theoretical

foundations. This chapter starts with a brief overview of the modern Japanese society

structure and then, it describes its contemporary identity crises. Then, it investigates the theme

of identity and how it is represented in contemporary Japanese literature. Moreover, the theme

is also examined from Haruki Murakmi’s point of view that is clarified in his work Kafka on

the Shore. After this, the chapter concludes with surveying the theory of psychoanalysis and

three of its main concepts as the main factors of analyzing the protagonists’ personalities in

this research.

I.1. An Overview of Contemporary Japanese Society

In rely on the socio-historical approach, the theme of identity reconstruction in

Murakami ‘s work Kafka on the Shore is exanimated first in social and historical context

before it is investigated in the work itself. The way an individual perceives the world can

change completely when the subject matter is Japan (大日本帝国)simply because everything

related to this country can be nothing but extraordinary. Japan is one of the rare nations that

decided to create its economic miracle after the bloody circumstances of the Second World

War, and the difficult conditions of the Cold War (1945 to 1991). It is also the country that

has experienced a massive series of changes in its political system but still has provided

national stability. In addition, Japan in few years has been able to get Sushi, Sashimi, Soba,

Udon, Bento, Okonomiyaki, Takoyaki, Ramen, Gyoza in the global kitchens as ambassadors

of its culture. The development of the country has increased psychologists and sociologists

interests in the Japanese society and the lifestyle of individuals. The positive image the world

has today about the Japanese as a modern non-Western nation and as a community that has

created the concepts of Fukoku kyōhei,富国強兵 (a rich country with strong military),
 7

Bunmei-kaika (文明開化) (civilization, and enlightenment) to become a hegemonic,

collectivist and respectful society is the result of people’s attitudes towards major historical

events and prewar experiences.

The understanding of Japanese society formulation requires a knowledge of the

country’s past. The nation values and its individuals’ attitudes are influenced directly by

major historical events such as The Edo-Tokugawa era, the Second World War, and the USA

occupation. For Japan, the social identity preliminary features have started during the Edo-

Tokugawa era. It is also calls the Edo period. It extended from 1603 till 1867, ruled by

Tokugawa Ieyasu who has realized internal peace, political stability, and economic growth

under the shogunate (military dictatorship). The era has formulated the Japanese lifestyle on

an ethnic and political basis where society’s behaviors were determined by the Kokugaku

(Japanese Classical Literature) that depends on spirituality, myth, and historical memories.

This era has been characterized by a sense of isolation and a limited contact with the western

world for over than three centuries, it is considered as the last period of traditional japan

(Brink and Zweerde 92).

When the Edo-Tokugawa era came to an end after almost 260 years, the society’s

chances of experiencing modernity and openness are increased gradually. Japan extended its

land to reach China and Korea and enjoyed a great success in the First World War, however,

the Second World War had different results on the country. It was a complete war where it

required not only a military commitment, but also a civilian involvement. During this war,

according to Hashimoto: ‘people voluntarily and involuntarily embraced the fascist state

headed by the Emperor and military leaders. The state demanded absolute allegiance and

subjugation to the Emperor and the state’ (2). Meanwhile, the atmosphere of pain, loss,

resentment and guilt that citizens lived led to a massive shift in the Japanese national identity

at two major perspectives. First, there was a change in the political identity captured in a
 8

transition from Goddess rule to a human rule which later represented a nation integration.

Second, there was a remarkable interest in formulating a cultural national identity.

Consequently, the Japanese government introduced the terms of household society (IeShakai),

the vertical society (Tate Shakai), collectivism (Shu ¯dan-shugi), contextualism (Kanjin-

shugi), culture of shame (haji) as the new concepts that determine the Japanese modern

society. Yet, these concepts created a conflict between the Japanese sociologists who

considered the terms as barriers in building a rational and universalistic state and the business

leader who believed that these concepts can be the symbols of the nation identity. As a result,

the nation’s social identity remained lost in the middle of the intellectual struggle (Beink and

Zweerde 92).

In August 15,1945, Japan was defeated in the war by the Allied forces and lost more

than three million people. In September of the same year for the first time in its history, Japan

was occupied by the USA. The US occupation was justified by America’s good intentions in

introducing modernity and democracy to Japanese people, but the real reason was that the US

and the Allied forces wanted to prohibit Japan from being a threatening power on Asia and

the world again. As a matter of fact, the occupation policy brought rational changes in the

political system and promoted to the economy recovery. Japan was able to create its economic

miracle in less than seven years. On the other hand, this conquest had a negative impact on the

Japanese society because the radical changes in the education system gave America the

authority to reshape the society’s standards. The old Japanese values that supported the love

and loyalty to the country and the emperor were replaced by new values that suit the new

democratic modern life. In the long run, The American modernity damaged japan cultural

heritage and social identity (Kumano36). ‘The economic miracle’ that increased during the

US occupation has continued after it, and made the Japanese believe in the possibility of

building a modern country that does not follow the western modern theory. In this context,
 9

Nakane and others, claim that the “economic miracle in Japan demonstrated to the rest of the

world that there was more than one way to be modern” (Victoria et al 106). Also, the

economic development led to reconstructing the society and centralizing the social identity

and social class. The Japanese investigated the possibility of deleting the social class system

and create a hegemonic society to help the individual to overcome personal differences and

focus on building one cultural national identity (Victoria et al 108). This ideology and many

others not only failed but entered the society to the loss decade period.

Today, the historical background of the country is considered as the main reason

behind the economic and the political stability of modern Japan, but the outcome of these

factors on the society are totally different. In times where the Japanese society is imposed to

change and forget about its values regularly to cope with the international statue, the chances

of having a modern social identity crisis has increased largely in 21stcentury. For the Japanese

contemporary community, the struggle of identity has reached its climax because of the

government decision that requires the amendment of the social system from

communitarianism to individualism. The theoretical purpose behind this approach is to help

the individual recognize his personal skills and to identify his identity as an individual than as

a member in the society. In contrast, under real circumstances the concept has resulted a

disintegration of social interdependence and destroyed the social closeness (Vojiskova 130).

Furthermore, the concept of individualism is affecting society’s deep structure. The Japanese

people who are used to put the group interests as priority are now characterized by a sense of

egoism and narcissism, even the responsibility toward the family and social class has

changed. The Japanese of 21st century are comfortable with losing their families and social

values in order to adhere with isolation. They easily get engaged in the Kikikomori situation:

a social phenomenon where the Japanese young adults for any reason prohibits themselves

from having social relationships, engaging in jobs or the process of finding job and even abide
 10

the house for over than six months. This point is clearly sustained by Vojiskova where he

explains that the above approaches has left the country between a rock and a hard place. He

declares:

Nevertheless, this rather positive transition was accompanied with the aggressive

asserting of egoistic interests, the gradual dissolution of local communities, the

increasing number of nuclear families, single-parent families and divorces in a way

remarkably similar to Europe and the United States, not to mention the feeling of

alienation from the society (e.g. hikikomori) and the alarming number of violent

misbehavior cases at Japanese schools. (131)

The statement expressed in the quotation, embodies the degree of damage the Japanese been

expose to when their country has found its way to became one of the most developed

countries in the contemporary time. It describes the feelings of isolation and the sense of

aggressiveness as some acquired behaviors that have taken place because of the radical

changes the society has been living for long period of time.

In recent studies, the sociologist experts confirm that establishing a balance between

self-desires and the social duties is one of the hardest challenges that the Japanese adolescents

and young adults have been facing during the process of identity exploration. They argue that

the confusion between the self-priorities and others not only harm the personality formation

but creates a conflict that in most cases leads to identity crises. Hence, The Japanese

generation today unlike any other modern generation finds itself obliged to get involved in

external relations and investigates other’s perspectives instead of focusing on its uniqueness.

For scholars such as Miyoshi, The Japanese social identity struggle would reach an end if one

of the methods is used. Either the individual distances himself from the group occupation and

corresponds to a higher sense of self-reliance, or he devotes his life to the group interests and
 11

corresponds to a higher sense of self-acceptance. Both methods seem to be nonfunctional in

real life (Sugimura and Mizokami 131-2).

I.2. The Theme of Identity in Contemporary Japanese Literature

Munesuke Mita in his essay ‘Patterns of Alienation in Contemporary Japan” (1968)

describes how isolating oneself defines one’s being in the world and how the inner quest of

identity causes struggle to the Japanese during the postwar period. This is because Mita

investigates some social cases that suffer from identity crisis presented in the Yoniuri journal

in 1962, inclusive to a teenager who failed passing the college entrance exam which created

feeling of guilt and problems with his poor family, and a wife whose husband achieved a

prosperous status in his life and started neglecting her; the fact that made her feel unworthy of

being alive. Mita concludes that the Japanese feel shaped by their interpersonal relationships

or by their social role (qtd. in Kimball 10). After the war and the bombing of Japan, the

Japanese felt the urge to redefine themselves as Kimball affirms: “but for the twentieth

century, the concern with identity became an obsession” and to answer such questions as what

is ‘I’? This was mirrored in the short story of Haruo Umezaki “Sakura Jima” through the

protagonist who asks the same question; Kimball refers to it as “painful self-awareness”.

Furthermore, postwar Japanese literary works incorporate many themes particularly ‘love’,

‘death’, ‘loneliness’, ‘alienation’, ‘despair’ and others along with the most prominent theme

‘identity’, moreover, all the previous themes serve the pursuit of identity in order to give

criteria to define how a modern man ought to be (Kimball 22).

Jiro Osaraji is among the figures whose work embody that theme of identity. His

novel Homecoming (1955) is described as ‘a glimpse into the soul of postwar Japan’ (Kimball

60), the protagonist of this novel is Kyogo Moria, an alienated man who lives abroad for ten

years and moves back home searching for his function in the society and questioning his

identity and seeking its construction. Moria declares: “to be sure, whatever I go, I shall be
 12

alone again, living along people who have no interest in me. When I open my eyes in the

morning I shall be alone, when I go walking outside I shall be alone.” (pp. 41, 296). This

temper of ‘self-indulgence’ and being defeated is so prevailing in the Japanese postwar

society, and for sure the Japanese readers of this period would absolutely relate to the overall

mood of the protagonist (Kimball 61). Kimball further stresses the romanticized version of the

Japanese postwar man who is unable to identify himself and his position within the society by

declaring: “unable to accept himself, forgive himself, and consequently unable to find –except

for others- a satisfying role in building postwar Japan” (62).

Another influential author in Japan is Kobo Abe who wrote The Women in the Dunes

in 1964. The protagonist of this novel is a biologist who is traveling on a three-days’ vacation

towards a village in order to collect infrequent insects. On his way to the village, the

panorama is fascinating with pets and plants ubiquitous, abruptly, that tremendous view turns

head over heels and nature get furious and everything becomes covered in sand, and the

protagonist gets stuck in the dunes. Being jammed, the protagonist starts to think about

existence, death and time; and become ‘self-observing’, likewise after he escapes he finds

himself not threatened by the everyday routine anymore and he comprehends how to deduce

meaning from such happenings (Kimball 136). The time the protagonist spends in the dunes is

not a physical experience, rather, it is a psychological one. This journey resembles one’s

discovery to oneself and the appearance of a new person hence a new identity (Kimball 138).

The consciousness of the hero causes what Kimball refers to as ‘identity found’. In the same

vein, Kimball describes how the themes of alienation, love, death and others are depicted in

Japanese literature to determine the identity of a prosperous modern man (22), this can be

further demonstrated on Oe Kenzaburo’s A Personal Matter (1964) that tells the story of Bird

who aims college entrance but gradually thinks about leaving the educational field to find

contentment elsewhere. This challenges the established image that a good job is reached
 13

through academia (Kimball 22) and emphasizes the extent to which Bird is anxious about his

identity and self-worth as well as his position as a man in the society (Kimball 142).

In his article “Oe Kenzaburo: Themes and Techniques in Mizukara Waga Namida

Wo Nugui Tamau hi (The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away)” (2003), Yasuko

Claremont declares that the novel of The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away (1972)

has a great deal of complexity and perfection. The unnamed protagonist has a liver cancer and

stays in a hospital where he detaches himself from himself as well as being isolated from the

surroundings. It is a proof to Claremont’s description to Oe’ characters depicting the

‘negative’ aspect of the human personality and fleeing from one’s truthful self-portrait while

showing how the ‘other’ has access to one’s identity with the ability to change it (The Novels

of Oe Kenzaburo 9). Cassegard further explains “Oe Kenzaburo … typically depicts

protagonists suffocating in the midst of oppressing human relationships” (117). The events

that the protagonist goes through wipe away his identity and individuality, thus

‘impersonality’ comes into being; the protagonist seems to be stuck in the past because his

nationalist father who was associated with army forces, lead a revolt in support to the emperor

who was defeated and surrendered to the Pacific war. After that, he kills the emperor in the

trial to save his ‘divinity’ and died because of cancer (158). Clermont describes the whole plot

by stating that:

The three images, embedded at intervals in the text, form a startling depiction of

isolation, bewilderment and despair, of a flight from anxiety culminating in a

headlong rush towards what is perceived to be resolution and release. At the heart

of the novel are questions of identity and responsibility. (159)

That is, by the end of this experience, the protagonist is not the same person he was; he learns

to deduce the significance of his experience and their impact on his personality.
 14

The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away illustrates the ‘literature of seclusion’ which

simultaneously mirrors the isolation of the Japanese man during the same decade (Motawani

423).

Kazuo Ishiguro’s An Artist of the Floating World (1986) depicts the general themes

that frequently appear in the works of Kazuo Ishiguro inclusive to wartime, identity and

memory. The protagonist Mesuji Ono is a famous painter whose wife and son depart in the

war and has only two girls remaining. Ono’s reputation is ruined because he is blamed yet

cannot admit that he embroiled in the death of his wife and son as he was involved in the

nationalist movement and ‘lead the country astray’ while they were in the bombing of

Nagasaki, hence, Ono begins to reevaluate his occupation (Tellini 2). Ono feels guilty and

cannot tolerate himself for the death he caused wherefore he puts his whole identity into

question (9) and as Darlington Hall refers to as “a man in later stages in his life trying to

reconcile his past with his present” (qtd in Beedham 43). Moreover, after the war and the

devastation of his reputation therein his community, Ono struggles to locate his belonging

especially that society has been changing since the end of the war, and like all thereby he is

stuck in his memories and seeking rescue from them (9). Tallini delves into this idea by

reporting that: “Memory and identity are elements that the novelist uses strategically in his

narratives, contextualizing them in a world where old values are crumbling, hence generating

conflicts that stem from reminiscing unreliable narratives in the context of social and

historical shifting values” (1). Ono’s scatteredness between the past and the present life

highlights the furtherance of the change and reevaluation of his principles.

Achieving an honorable and respectful reputation in the literary milieu within twenty

years, Haruki Murakami has a great deal in depicting the theme of individual identity in his

works (Strecher 263). He has always stated in an implicit manner the question of how

individuals of his generation and above define themselves (Strecher 264). Frantiu proclaims:
 15

“The characters from Haruki Murakami’s first novels seem, indeed, to lack social

commitment and the awareness of belonging to a place, but they evolve and turn from

isolation and social irresponsibility to political and civic consciousness” (65). With his novel

A Wild Sheep Chase (1982) that attracts readership across the globe, in addition to Hard

Boiled Wonderland (1985), Norwegian Wood (1987) and Dance Dance Dance (1988) that

were ‘best sellers’ and proved to best investigate the human inner psychology plainly

(Motwani 424).

Fuminobu Murakami declares that Haruki Murakami engages characters and

narrators that isolate themselves emotionally and logically from themselves as well as from

their surroundings and externalities (164). Stretcher and Thomas further articulate on this

view by stating that the characters within Murakami’s fiction “find no family or society to

belong to” (25). Sollars and Jennins assert this idea by noting: “Characters that Murakami

shapes struggle through darkness and lost parts of themselves” (541). Another feature of how

Murakami characterizes the individual’s identity is the idea that identity can only be

approached through ‘metaphysical elements’ or through what’s known as ‘magical realism’

except in the work Norwegian Wood (Stretcher 267). Fuminobu Murakami proclaims that the

character Naoko in Norwegian Wood suffers from schizophrenia which is mainly ‘self-

identity that is alienated from social identity’ and they cannot be unified (33). Strecher argues

that the theme of identity also appears in Murakami’s Novel The Wind up Bird Chronicle

(1994). It resembles Murakami’s idea about the mind and the Soul, moreover, for Murakami

the mind represents the conscious mind and the soul represents the unconscious mind. what

really verbalizes what is in the soul is the utterances of oneself; this idea is embodied through

the protagonist of the novel who seeks finding traces of her lost identity using emails she

sends to her husband (qtd in Strecher and Thomas 38).

I.3. The Theme of Identity in Kafka on the Shore

 16

It is unequivocal that the theme of identity is the most appealing in the story of Kafka

on the Shore. Therefore, it has been studied from many points of view. Leeuwen asserts that

Kafka Tamura flees from his original domicile where he used to live with his father because

both his mother and sister elope when he was four years old, also because his father has an

oedipal prophecy that Kafka murders him in the future and have a sexual intercourse with his

mother and sister (232). Kafka heads towards his new life traveling to a new small town

whereabouts he lives in a small library of a boy named Oshima and his director Ms. Saeki

(233). The second story demonstrates the one of the second protagonist Nakata who is

affected by a happening during 1948 while he was with his classmates and teacher in a ramble

and all the class faints, everyone comes back to their natural state except for Nakata who has

lost his ability of understanding. However, gains the capacity to speak to cats. The plot of the

novel suggests the pursuit of the ‘individual identity’, liberty and independence which is

depicted in Kafka's departure that is full of vagueness and raises the question of why is he

leaving? Is if for reconstructing his identity? Seeking love and refuge? Eloping the oedipal

curse? But Kafka's aims become clearer with the progress of the story (234). So, this study is

disassembling the main characters’ personalities puzzle through investigating the

psychological obstacles that contribute to distorting and building the identity of each of them.

Again, it presents the negative and the positive effects of the Oedipus complex, Dreams, and

trauma on the mental and behavioral functions to give a clear explanation to the protagonists'

actions.

By the same token, it is undoubtable that the identity construction issue is one of

Murakami most noticeable theme in all of his works and especially in Kafka on the Shore. As

Frantiu describes: “Haruki Murakami’s literary creation focuses upon the problem of

achieving a valid form of the self in a fictional world where it becomes ever harder for oneself

to arrive at self-definitions” (66). It is considered that the elements that contribute to the
 17

formation of the characters’ identity in the novel Kafka on the Shore are ‘signs’ such as

‘narrative’ and ‘memory’, which make the rebuilding of identity an inner process within the

individual. Identity is viewed as a psychological aspect not a social one, which is portrayed in

Kafka's reconstruction of identity due to sentimental conflicts. However, Wattanagun and

Chotiudompant in their essay “The Quest and Reconstruction of Identity in Haruki

Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore” investigate the theme of identity from the angle of the

principles of a capitalist society taking into consideration the two characters Hoshino and

Nakata’s journeys in the story. They reflect identity construction within a capitalist society in

which they consume some materialistic objects and think it is what success is about.

Nevertheless, Hoshino represents a real consumer within a capitalist society and Nakata

represents the concealed one (26-7), because one of the aspects that Murakami depicts

through his characters is actually identity reconstruction within a capitalist society (Frantiu

62).

After Nakata kills Kafka's father, he stops Hoshino in the road to give him a ride.

Hoshino has been obsessed with Aloha shirts as well as ‘Chunichi Dragons baseball team cap

and comics’; these objects determine Hoshino’s identity as he fills the emptiness he has inside

with such properties’ possession, thus what aids Hoshino in creating his identity is his

sincerity to the team. Sinking that much within the team gives the impression that Hoshino

sees himself in the team and considers winning the ‘cap’ as his own objective not only the

team’s. This incarnates a capitalist consumer society in which people have superficial and

materialistic objects that define them, but they remain empty inside, they function in society

as “passive” bodies with fragile identity (27). Besides that, the overlap of both the capitalist

doctrine of owning such tangible resources is what prosperity about, with one's question of

one’s self-identity leads to ‘alienation’; Hoshino is a pure embodiment of this overlap (28). In

contradistinction with Hoshino, Nakata's alienation is because he has lost the ability to speak
 18

and understand. Moreover, both characters are ‘subversive’ but in a different way; Hoshino

projects the negative aspect of a consumer within the capitalist society, whereas Nakata does

not even comprehend the principle of capitalism in his society (29). Nakata does not value a

big amount of money, rather, a small amount in reciprocity of what he needs is adequate and

it is not because of his stupidity; money is just meaningless to him, and that represents a

different type of alienation that is linked to his memory loss, therefore he lost understanding

of the capitalist principle (30). As a conclusion, Wattanagun and Chotiudompant’s study

emphasizes the idea that Nakata and Hoshino’s identities are determined by the principles of

the capitalist society that denotes how individuals seek possessing materialistic objects,

however, it keeps them feel empty inside.

The Protagonist Kafka has a disrupted identity otherwise because his mother

relinquishes him and his father emotionally abuses him, therefore he develops self-loathing

which was the primary motif leading to his journey in the pursuit of identity reconstruction.

The first item to be considered the treatment to Kafka's shattered identity is ‘magic’ as it

appears in his life to trigger the curbed feelings that he does not feel because of his

psychological detachment from the community (31). Kafka’s identity quest is illustrated in the

following quote: “identity that has been disrupted earlier is getting constructed to become the

new him. Kafka who was troubled by the prophecy, has to be a hero for himself in order to be

able to construct his identity to become a new version of him, being free and becoming his

own self, living his own life not in someone`s scheme” (Amirullah 9). That is, Kafka’s quest

of identity is about his refusal to be shaped by his father’s template; he wants to live his life

the way he decides it to be, and that was initiated by the journey itself towards many

experiences that helped him to renovate and redesign himself psychologically.

The current research takes a new pathway since it investigates the theme of identity

from another aspect. The attention is devoted to the study of how the psychological elements
 19

of ‘dreams’ and ‘Oedipus complex’ that the protagonist Kafka experiences lead him to

decisions towards turning points in his life seeking redefinition of himself, as well as how

‘trauma’ rebuilds the identity of the second protagonist Nakata.

II.1 Overview of the Psychoanalytic Theory

The source of the study of the human psychology was first established upon the belief

that the distinction between humans and animals is ‘self-thinking’ or the ability to describe

their status (Ravkin and Ryan 389). The father of the ‘self-description’ is Sigmund Freud who

acquired from his teacher Josef Breur a technique that allows to analyze his patients' repressed

feelings, desires and fears; Freud lets his patients spontaneously verbalize whatever they feel

even if their utterances make absolutely no sense (Ravkin and Ryan 390). This Field is known

as psychoanalysis, in which Freud believes that the source of human behavior is an aspect of

the mind that is only approachable through indirect means as ‘dreams’ and ‘neurotic

symptoms’, or through one's restrained fears, desires and feelings that our consciousness does

not allow to express. This aspect of the mind in known as the unconscious and it is the core of

psychoanalysis. Freud's perspective towards repression is illustrated in the following quote:

Repression is essential to civilization, the conversion of animal instinct into civil

behavior, but such repression creates what might be called a second self, a

stranger within, a place where all that cannot for one reason or another be

expressed or realized in civil life takes up residence, for Freud, explains why

people experience what he calls “uncanny” feelings of doubleness that consist of a

sense that something strange coexists with what is most familiar inside ourselves.

(Ravkin and Ryan 567)

Therefore, repression is the result of social instructions that curb the animalistic and the

inappropriate feelings and desires of individuals in order to guarantee proper civil behaviors.
 20

Rainer Emig declares that: “Storytelling is the obvious link between psychoanalysis

and literature” (qtd. in Knellwolf and Norris 175). The psychoanalytic criticism of literature

adopted the principles of psychoanalysis immediately by its establishment in the 20th century.

The reciprocity between literature and psychoanalysis is undeniable as psychoanalysis tries to

interpret literature and uses it as a source of its ‘conception’, whereas the literary field uses

the findings the psychoanalysis to make the works more innovative. Therefore, the reciprocal

relationship between literature and psychoanalysis is indisputable, and what creates the bridge

between them is literary criticism (Devardhi 473). Hence, this dissertation employs the

psychological concepts dreams, trauma and Oedipus complex in order to analyze the

protagonists’ inner psych that leads to reformulating their identities.

Psychoanalytic literary criticism views literature as ‘therapy’ to the authors'

suppressed feelings and desires that they project through the characters of the literary work.

Moreover, psychoanalytic literary criticism digs deep into the language of the work in order to

uncover the unconscious of the writers and their personalities that is known as the ‘primacy of

the unconscious’ theory of which the principle is that the source of creativity is neuroses. It

permits the readers to relate to the psychological aspects of the story and the characters that

make them reach and be comfortable with their own suppressed items in their own

unconscious. Along with the Primacy of the unconscious, Freud established other

psychological concepts including, ‘Dreams are an expression of our Conscious mind’ and

‘Infantile behavior is essentially Sexual’ (483).

In Relation to the concept of dreams, Vial states that Freud views dreams as

depiction of thoughts that the conscious mind refuses but the unconscious mind is thirsty for,

moreover, dreams perform the desires that are curbed in the unconscious because of some

externalities which make them stored in the unconscious (137). Taking everything into

account, the concept of dream from the Freudian perspective is summarized in Devardhi's
 21

statement: “dreams are an expression of our ‘unconscious mind’ where Freud states that the

conflict between the ‘ego’ and the ‘id’ is continued while we sleep” (441).

Infantile sexuality is defined as children achieving sexual pleasure from the sexually

responsive body parts, named ‘erogenous zones’, which shift through a sequence known as

the psychosexual development. This pleasure should reach a normal amount, because

receiving excessive or insufficient amount of repletion at each psychosexual stage will lead to

what Freud calls ‘fixation’ of that period in adulthood, i.e., the identity of that infant will be

trapped at one of those stages (Nevid 386).

The psychoanalytic literary theory uses the theories of psychoanalysis itself in which

the unconscious is a central notion and a commonality between the previously mentioned

theories; in order to analyze the psychological aspects of literary works as well as the authors.

Furthermore, this study uses the Oedipus complex of the infantile sexuality in order to analyze

the oedipal presence in the protagonist’s life, as well as his dreams and their meaning and

impact on his journey towards redesigning his qualities and beliefs.

I.2 The Oedipus Complex

The Oedipus complex is a Freudian theory that puts emphasis on the idea that male

children grow sexual attraction towards their mothers, and female children grow sexual

attraction towards their fathers to the extent of being rival towards the parent of the same sex.

This theory first appeared in Sigmund Freud's influential work The Interpretation of Dreams

in 1990 (Jakovljev and Matacić 351). However, the term ‘Oedipus’ itself did not appear until

1910 (Jervis 69). Concerning this theory, Freud does not devote much attention on the

Oedipus complex of girls (also known as the Electra complex). He assumes that female

children develop the sensation of being incomplete because of the absence of the ‘penis’ as a

physical part of the body, which they blame their mothers for, as a result, the sexual desire

towards their fathers emerges (Jakovljev and Matacić 352).

 22

The Oedipus complex is originally placed in Freud's psychosexual development

theory as the third stage of the infant's sexual evolution, thus it is crucial to locate its position

in the preceding continuum of the infant's sexual progress through their childhood. Each

phase of the psychosexual development is attached to a different part of the body called the

‘erogenous zone’. In consonance with Freud's view, those body parts operate physical

activities such as eating, reproducing and eliminating (Nevid 386).

The first stage of the psychosexual development is named the oral stage of which the

fundamental ‘erogenous zone’ is the mouth, it occurs at the age of twelve months. At this

period, children experience pleasure by having something inside their mouths for instance

breast feeding. Children who excessively enjoy this phase will likely fixate it in their

adulthood which might be projected and illustrated through such habits as ‘smoking’ or ‘nail

biting’... In contrast, when this phase is not adequately appreciated, the infant will also project

it in their puberty through, for example, being passive or clingy (Nevid 387). The second

phase is called the anal stage, here the libido would likely shift from the mouth to the ‘anus’.

The anal phase occurs at the age of eighteen months until the age of three. At this point,

children evolve the ability to control their ‘elimination’, and at the advanced level they

expand the ability to use the ‘toilet’ as well as the will to avoid the parents' criticism about it

which comprises using the lavatory at the suitable time (Nevid 387). The third stage is the

phallic stage; it appears between the age of three to six. At this point the Oedipus complex

floats to the surface attributable to the fact that the ‘libido’ shifts to the phallic region. Infants

start to acquire erotic desires towards their parent of the opposite sex and start to grow the

feeling of jealousy and the wish of eradicating the parent of the same sex, in this regard Freud

in his book The Ego and the Id announces that:

At a very early age the child develops an Object-Cathexis for his mother, which

originally related to the mother's breast and is the prototype of an object-choice on

 23

the analytic model. The boy deals with his father by identifying himself with him

for a time these relationships proceed side by side, until the boy's sexual wishes in

regard to his mother become more intense and his father is perceived as an

obstacle to them; from this the Oedipus complex originates. His identification

with his father then takes on a hostile coloring and changes into a wish to get rid

of his father in order to take his place with his mother. Henceforward his relation

to his father is ambivalent; it seems as if the ambivalence inherent in the

identification from the beginning had become manifested. An ambivalent attitude

to his father and an object-relation of a solely affectionate kind to his mother

makeup the content of the simple positive Oedipus complex in a boy. (25-6)

Accordingly, the Oedipus complex is about the infant’s wish to possess the mother and to

eradicate the father due to the sexual desires the child has towards the mother and the feeling

of jealousy he had towards the father. Nevid states that Freud attributed the name of his theory

from the Greek myth of the Oedipus king who unintentionally slaughtered his father and

married his mother. What Freud extracted from the myth is that it drew one of the most

fundamental principles of the human’s ‘psychosexual development’ (388).

Freud views that infants try to settle this inner dispute by creating a bond with the

parent of the same sex while maintaining the sexual attraction towards the parent of the

opposite sex; this harmonization and correspondence gets reflected in gender-specific

attitudes namely boys will develop aggression and independence and girls develop shyness

and sobriety as personality traits. This identification is sought to be the result of the

establishment of the boy's superego (388). Brayton Polka affirms this view by stating: “the

authority of one's father is further reinforced through the interiorization of educational, social,

cultural and religious authority in and by the superego in the form of conscious, the

(un)conscious sense of guilt and the categorical imperative” (81). Polka further states that the
 24

superiority of the superego over the ego's sense of guilt is a result of two reasons: “the

original identification with the father when the ego was still infantile" and “superego is heir to

the Oedipus complex” (81). In conclusion, the Oedipus complex makes the ego raise the sense

of guilt because of the infant's feelings towards the parent of the opposite sex which makes

the superego emerge and create a bonding relation with the parent of the same sex.

II.3 Interpretation of Dreams

Centuries ago, the common understanding of the concept of dreaming was that

dreams are a set of weird, random and changeable brain activities that take place during sleep.

These activities are meaningless and represent nothing but itself. The interest in dreams has

developed to become a whole theory when the pioneer of psychology Segment Freud

introduced his book The Interpretation of Dreams in 1900. Freud was well known for being

an active dreamer, but the vision of the book is formed from one of his exceptional

interpretations of the dream of Irma’s injection, or so-called the ‘specimen dream’. The

influence of the new theories introduced about psychology in general and about dreams

specifically in the book has never been in Segment expectations. He always had doubts of

having the capacity to discover the secret relation between the dreams and the unconscious.

Ina letter to his friend Wilhelm Fliess, Freud wrote: “Do you suppose that someday one will

read on a marble tablet on this house: Here, on July 24, 1895, the secret of the dream revealed

itself to Dr. Sigm. Freud?” (Michael 17-8).

The Freudian dreams theory is regarded as one of the revolutionary theories that has

changed the idea of analyzing the human psychology and the way the mind functions in the

western community for over a century. Segment declares: “Insight such as this falls to one’s

lot but once in a lifetime” (17). Throughout The Interpretation of Dreams, he presents a clear,

complete schema to dreams theory: definition, meaning, functions and the role it plays in the

waking life of the dreamer. Dreams where outlined as the production of the unconscious mind
 25

and at the same time they are the unique window toward the understanding of the conscious

mind. Moreover, the random and incoherent images a person have during sleep are never

meaningless. (Merkar 1) The interpretation of thousands of dreams has led the originator of

dreams concept, Freud, to his next discovery about dreams functions. He stetes that unlike

intentions or desires, dreams portray the fulfillment of wishes. They are attempts that work on

satisfying the conscious wishes that are normally forbidden by the superego which is the

authority power that dictates to the conscious what is right and what is wrong in reality. In

this regard, hi climes in his book the Interpretations of Dreams that:

Dreams are not to be likened to the unregulated sounds that rise from a musical

instrument struck by the blow of some external force instead of by a player’s

hand; they are not meaningless; they are not absurd; they do not imply that one

portion of our store of ideas is asleep while another portion is beginning to wake.

On the contrary, they are psychical phenomena of complete validity—fulfilments

of wishes. (147)

The attention to dream analysis has grown larger after 1900. Freud’s theory has

proved through observation that there is a cause-effect relationship between dreams and the

waking life. Since dreams are a result of passion needs and conscious ideas they tend to be a

self-report. It means that the materials used in producing a dream are generally linked to a

previous event which has occupied the person s mind for some time. These dreams capture

the reality of an individual into symbols, even when the result is something ambiguous they

can set some true aspects about the personality of that individual. The trick is in the working

mechanism of this phenomena, dreams composes of the manifest content: which represent the

images that the dreamer sees during his sleep (symbols), and the latent content: which is the

real meaning of that dream that refer to a certain part of that person life. Furthermore, this

unconscious phenomenon plays a role in the operation of self-healing. In a situation where the
 26

conscious mind is unable to express and practices its desires because of the superego and the

ego pressure. The dreams offer an escapement and they create a whole different world for that

person in order to the detach the conscious form the traumatic day struggles (41-2) “…It sets

us free from reality, extinguishes our normal memory of it and places us in another world and

in a quite other life-story which in essentials has nothing to do with our real one” (Freud 43).

The birth of dreams concept came to parallel with the birth of psychoanalysis, for

that reason interpretation of dreams is one of the very first techniques used to understand the

unconscious mind. In addition, the term of analysis itself is considered as a synonym to a

patient therapy session to interpreted and understand his dreams, and if the patient had no

dreams the analysis would be something impossible to achieve. Sharpe states that: “that the

interpretation of dreams stands as the corner-stone of psycho- analysis, and that mainly by

such interpretation psycho-analysis first earned by the cures achieved, adherents to the new

therapy” (67).

Once Sigmund Freud explained the broad meaning of dreams, the development of

the dreams approaches in psychoanalysis improved gradually. In The Meaning of Dreams in

Psychoanalysis Rachel. B. Blass states that: “… may be divided into three basic categories:

developments regarding the application of the clinical method to the dream, developments

regarding the nature of the dream process, and developments regarding the aim of the dream”

(155). The first category is a collection of dreams techniques, besides different critical views

about the dream analysis approach that were introduced by later analysts. The second

category comes in the form of footnotes to The Interpretation of Dreams (1900) where Freud

discusses the process of dreams all over again and introduced new changes at the level of

understanding. Finally, the last category of ‘developments regarding the aim of the dream’

discusses whether dreams are limited to function only as wishes fulfillment or it may also

convey other aims such as evacuation or expressing traumatic experiences an individual may
 27

experience. Nowadays, the contemporary psychiatrists are trying to use the Freudian dream

techniques as a guide in more developed searches, that focus more on clarifying the impact of

dreams on the self and identity shaping, and weather our dreams are influenced by our

cultural and social life or not.

II.4 Trauma

In life, there is always a gloomy time that every human being must experience before

he dies. In most cases, this side takes the form of a traumatic event which overwhelms the

individual ability to cope and affects his emotional and mental balance. The way people

approach traumatic experiences is almost similar. They see it as a huge black hole that has

swallowed beautiful things in their lives and will keep on being a source of fear and loss.

Trauma as a concept is hard to grasp since it has no regular syndrome. According to The

American Psychiatric Association, trauma refers to any negative event a person may be

exposed to, being part of it or even witness it happens to someone close to him. They come in

the form of a life-threatening situation, physical injury or violent sexual abuse that result in a

sense of helpless and fear. For John Briere and Catherine Scott this definition covers one side,

they argue that the traumatic damage can hit the psychological level too. Briere and Scott

explains that: “…definition also included threats to psychological integrity as valid forms of

trauma. Because the DSM-5 does not consider events to be traumatic if they are highly

upsetting but not life-threatening events, for example, extreme emotional abuse, major losses

or separations” (9). They also present a broader definition that sets that trauma is a

phenomenon that causes physical and psychological hurt or stress to an individual for a while

“our conclusion is that an event is traumatic if it is extremely upsetting, at least temporarily

overwhelms the individual internal resources, and produces lasting psychological symptoms”

(10).
 28

The path of introducing trauma theory in the psychological field was never easy,

even though world history was written in blood. The psychiatrists refused the effect of

traumatic events on the individual conscious and subconscious. Werner Bohleber in his book

Destructiveness, Intersubjectivity and Trauma (2010) declares that in one of Freud’s

experiences of analyzing a female patient who had developed hysterical symptoms. The

trauma concept was involved for the first time, according to Freud the result of the analysis

insists that traumatic events are the main reason behind the conscious disorder. He claims:

“His patients’ accounts of having been sexually seduced in childhood led Freud to assume

that a pre-pubertal sexual trauma was involved” (77).

The voice of trauma became extremely heard in psychoanalysis, when the two

friends, psychologists Sigmund Freud and Sandro Ferenczi went into two different paths in

the analysis of traumatized patient. Freud gave more interest in trauma, after noticing that the

results of his analysis to understand hysteria phenomena will never fit the ‘Seduction theory’.

The shift in his writing about hysteria reasons was directed into traumatic experiences and

sexual abuse of an individual during his childhood. “Freud uncovered major traumatic events

of childhood sexual abuse and incest concealed beneath the more recent, often relatively

trivial experiences that had triggered the onset of hysterical symptoms” (Eshel 626). Yet,

Freud replaced trauma with the intrapsychic drive model, infantile fantasies, and repression,

as logical causes for the hysterical crisis, and he confirmed that there are huge possibilities

that the traumatic events the patient narrate are fantasy events. On the contrary, Ferenczi

discovered the deep meaning of traumatic disorder during his therapeutically session with

traumatized patinas, he assumes that the success or the failure of any therapy situation

depends on “the traumatogenic past” element. It means that the more the individual is open

and honest about the traumatic events he lived, the easier the healing would be. He also

confirmed the reality of the different sexual and violent abuse experiences and considered
 29

them as the shaper of childhood trauma. The two different paths end up with giving the same

result. Freud in his work Beyond the Pleasure Principle summarized that trauma and

traumatic memory are the hidden elements that control the individual’s future development.

Equally, Ferenczi in his “Confusion of Tongues” (1933) point out that personality stability

depends on the traumatic events a person lives. The work of Sandor Ferenczi (1873-1933),

especially in his last years, brought to the fore the importance of childhood trauma and its

impact on personality and on the analytic treatment” (Eshel 624). Similarly, Michael Balint

conforms the interconnectedness between trauma and child self-progress. He argues that the

effect of the traumatized object, not only causes external physical damage, but it also destroys

the internal mechanism that usually offers protection to the child’s mental and emotional

health. He states that: “…it is not just the internal object relationship that is damaged or falls

apart, but also the internal, protecting, safety-providing communication between self- and

object representations” (81).

The most contemporary studies support the alliance between trauma and brain

providing more focus to the trauma mechanism. Recent theories such as Terry’s theory,

Vander Koll’s theory, and Fred’s theory believes that traumatic experiences influence largely

the brain function, but they are more serious and dangerous when it comes to memory. The

neurophysiological facts confirm that trauma events disturb memory mechanism. Where it

causes negative changes at the level of encoding, restoring, retain, and retrieve memories, that

are responsible for solving the daily memory tests such as remembering home address, phone

number, email pass words …etc. Additionally, the traumatic experiences that take place in the

individual childhood rise the possibilities of mental and physical disorder, and destroys the

cognitive and emotional functions. They also lead to a remarkable increase in the stress level,

which would make the traumatized individual give an emotional response to daily events.
 30

To conclude, this chapter represents a socio-historical and theoretical foundation of

the present thesis. It contains key elements that helps in understanding the Japanese society

and the existence of identity construction as an important theme in contemporary Japanese

literary productions. Equally, this chapter is considered as an abstraction platform to the

psychoanalytical theories: Oedipus complex, dreams interpretation, and trauma since they are

the Freudian concepts that encourage achieving the main goal of the thesis analysis. The

understanding of this concepts helps concerting accurate analysis of the protagonist’s

identities in Murakami work Kafka on the Shore.

 31

Chapter Two: A Psychoanalytical Reading of the First Protagonist Kafka Tamura

The second chapter of this dissertation investigates the personality construction of

the first main character Kafka Tamura. The major aim of this analytical chapter is to highlight

the different psychological factors that affect the character’s self-progress. To reach this aim,

the Freudian theories presented previously are used as the main tool. The chapter is divided

into three main sections. The first section represents a thorough observation of the

interconnectedness between the author Haruki Murakami and his fictional work Kafka on The

Shore. It demonstrates the overlap between the author’s life circumstances and his work.

Then, the second section narrows the scope to focus on the consequences of the Oedipus

complexity on the nature of Kafka's emotions and actions. For the third section, the

interpretation of dreams is presented as another psychological aspect that has an equal impact

on the protagonist self-improvement.

I. The Relationship Between Haruki Murakami and his Novel: Kafka on the Shore

In the literary milieu, writers depend on their subconscious stories at add creativity to

their production and to discover the hidden spaces in themselves. Remarkably, the use of this

technique has largely increased these days when the literary studies has proved the

subconscious powerful and significant effect on the readers. Haruki Murakami stands out with

his unusual thinking and his appreciation to the subconscious. The Japanese writer’s plots are

usually artistry and original, Kafka on the Shore in fact is no exception. In this novel,

Murakami’s innovation to plot rich in events that remain incomplete opens a wide range of

interpretation. However, the trick that finds general consensus and admission by the author

himself is the possibility of this work to involve Murakami’s wide subconscious and exposes

his unknown feeling and desires so effortlessly (Vujnovic 70).

 32

Haruki Murakami is a modern Japanese writer who relies in his writing on creating

plots that make his protagonists moves between the fantasy world and the real world. His

fictional works always attempt to diagnose the human mind struggle between the conscious

and the unconscious. For Murakami the subconscious is an essential motive because it helps

him in formulating unexpected characters. He confesses that in his writing he does not focus

on analyzing the meanings of everything, rather, he feels that he needs to express the right

things with a touch of weirdness. That is why the subconscious to him is aterra incognita, i.e.,

an unknown land (vasile 116). Basically, Kafka on the Shore is an abnormal work that relies

on a strange story that embodies the journey of two protagonists from the physical conscious

world to the unconscious world. They are hunted by dreams, memories and vision that help

them know themselves. Moreover, the characters of the novel are occasionally being

controlled by the subconscious even when they are in reality. The general mysterious and dark

atmosphere offered in most scenes make the reader's heart pound even when nothing special

is happening in the story. Above all, the rigid silent nature and spaces such as forests,

wastelands, houses and hotel rooms function symbolically as realms of the subconscious. For

example, the few days Kafka spends in the mountains cabinet give him the opportunity to

discover the hidden linkage that bounds him with nature. He quickly recognizes that the

emptiness of the forest reflects the empty spots within himself: “If it wanted to, the forest

could reject me – or swallow me up whole” (233).

In his personal web site ‘Haruki Murakami’ the contemporary author admits that

Kafka on The Shore’s first image has been about a young boy who runs away from home, but

during the process of writing most of the secondary stories became a result of the

subconscious interventions. This intervention adds spirituality, myths and even several riddles

that win the readers’ attention fast. Therefore, he adds that this work is like dreaming during

wake time. It is true that it sounds like fantasy but it is also part of reality. For Murakami only
 33

the readers who believe in the power of the unconscious over real actions can understand the

purpose behind his novel Kafka on the Shore. Additionally, Murakami declares that the

subconscious stories have risen multiple interrogation in readers’ heads. In a period of three

months, he received more than 8,000 questions from readers. They have been curious to know

the purpose behind those stories and whether they have a hidden meaning that their mind

could not decode. The Japanese author admits that the only piece of advice he is able to give

is to read the novel several times because his subconscious creativity has always surprised

him.

In January 1995, a destructive earthquake hit the western part of Japan causing deaths

of nearly 6000 citizens as well as damages principally impacted the region of Kobe (Chang

53). The same year in March, a sarin gas was emitted targeting the three principles metro

systems that function for the fundamental governmental zones in Tokyo (Asokai and

Maekawa150), leaving total statistics of the results of the incident: twelve deaths as well as

5500 hospitalized citizens (Asokai and Maekawa150). These events actually affected the

psychology of the Japanese public generally and Murakami specifically as his fiction is

marked by an ‘ethical turn’ in which Murakami's themes and images depicted in his works

have known a shift (Mitoko 17). The effect of these traumatic incidents on Murakami is

characterized by his notion that the source of the nature’s disturbance in the real world

‘underground’ is the ‘metaphorical underground’: the self. Furthermore, the internalized

problems that individuals have are reflected in the angry nature (Mitoko 18-9). Hence, due to

this experience, Murakami develops a ‘manifesto’ he has applied in his post 1995 literary

oeuvres because he sees the urge to create new ‘narratives’ and ‘ideas’ (Mitoko 20). This is

depicted in his fictional work Kafka on the Shore, as the protagonist Kafka murders his father

through the character Nakata's body. Hence, the plot suggests uncertain cut between reality

and fantasy since Kafka’s patricide is not elucidated (Mitoko 21). The plot of the novel is
 34

created the same way humans experience earthquakes, i.e., just like an earthquake’s trembling

destroys everything that stands with rigidity, the plot of Kafka on the Shore has no solid

ground at which reality stands. Thus, the way the novel is written implies convulsion just like

an earthquake does (Mitoko 22). Another way Murakami’s experiences are reflected in his

work is the pursuit of the process of recovery from the ‘complex 60s’. Murakami states that

the 1960s were fascinating times of his life. By the 1970s, Japan was privileged by affluence

which is the period of transmission from postwar decade to the days of wealth. Murakami

then saw the 1960 as ‘black hole in his memory’, because he did not sufficiently enjoy the

freedom from the war that the American consumer culture and wealth took place in Japan

during the 1970s (Bail 67). This black hole of memory is indeed mirrored through the ages of

the characters; Kafka is a fifteen-year old teenager, Nakata is a fifty-one- year old who suffers

amnesia and Saeki is a fifty-year old who stops ‘living’ after the murder of her boyfriend.

There is an absence of characters representing ages between 20 years old and 60 years old.

Additionally, Kafka meets Saeki in the woods where time and memories are not important,

thus the woods represent the 60s of the author and the black hole of his memories (68). In an

interview with Murakami himself, he declares that his writings are a bridge to his

‘subconscious’ and holds expressiveness to his internalized thoughts and conflicts that’s why

his process of literary production takes a free form rather than a previously planned plot

(Rosbow 217). The Freudian psychoanalysis of literature interprets the nature of fictional

works as a manifestation of the author’s personality. Abrams notes that literary works are like

a dream, they reflect the author’s fantasies that are either curbed or ‘denied’ (249). Moreover,

Freud states that authors obtain the capacity of sublimation which denotes that they creatively

convert their suppressed elements in their unconscious to artistic literary works that helps

authors overcome their internal struggles (249). Abrams further reports “The subject matter of

a work of literature is a projection of the fantasies—engendered by the interplay of

 35

unconscious needs and defenses—that constitute the particular “identity” of its author” (258).

In summation, Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore symbolizes a sublimation and

projection of different aspects and events from his life imbedded in the story as well as

depicting characters in the way they project him, creating a fascinating and influential literary

work.

II. The Effect of the Oedipus Complex on Kafka’s Identity

Among the most common characteristics of postmodern Japanese literature is a

character who gets detached from his family in the pursuit of self-definition (Murakami 65).

The protagonist Kafka, then, is a model of a Japanese postmodern person. Kafka elopes from

his home in Tokyo to Takamatsu where he stays in a private library in his new town that is

located in Shikoku Island. He finds it a perfect shelter. The library belongs to Miss Saeki, a

middle aged beautiful women and Oshima, a transgender who runs the library with her. Kafka

runs away from home to escape the oedipal prophecy his father throws on him, that he will

kill him and sleep with his long lost mother and sister who escape home when Kafka was at

the age of four. In his inner self, Kafka builds a protective wall as a layer that includes his

thoughts and beliefs in which no one is allowed to approach as he declares that not a single

creature is permitted to access his mind, and that it is his comfort zone that he does not feel

the need to step out of (Kafka on the Shore 9). Among the other features that Kafka develops

is self-hatred, sadness and fear. Kafka has an alter-ego named ‘Crow’ that functions as an

inner voice helping Kafka in his journey by advice and guidance.

At the beginning of Kafka’s journey, Crow advises him to imagine a sandstorm in the

following quote:

Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You

change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm
 36

adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just

before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far

away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something

inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm. (Kafka

on the Shore 5)

That is, Crow advises Kafka not to avoid the oedipal destiny, however, he needs to pass his

way towards his new self through the oedipal curse. Crow further professes: “when you come

out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all

about.” (6), this means that Kafka by the end of his journey will be a different person and will

reconstruct his inner self. In this regards, Inez Martinez calls Crow’s words an ‘augury of

transformation’ that Kafka initiates his journey by; a pre-knowledge of the fact that his

personality and qualities change after the encounter (qtd. in Rowland 59).

Kafka’s attempt behind leaving home is to evade the oedipal curse that, in his opinion,

is a program implanted in his body by his father. In this regards, Kafka announces that the

curse is attached to him just as a DNA is inserted in his body of which the only way to erase is

to remove his corps itself, for him it is an omen internalized in his cells (Kafka on the

Shore10). In Kafka’s opinion, his father’s words are a program that he cannot avoid; that is,

Kafka holds his father responsible for the oedipal inflexion and not his own actions. Another

feature attached to Kafka is hatred towards the mother: “I can erase my mother from my

memory” (Kafka on the Shore 10). This shows that Kafka establishes a victimized trait by

which he blames his mother for abandoning him and by erasing her from his memory, Kafka

demonstrates the unwillingness to forgive his mother. He also develops the quality of fear of

committing the oedipal program. This is apparent in one of the dialogues with Oshima in

which Kafka confirms that the reason behind leaving Shikoku is escaping the oedipal

prediction his father has for him. He even asserts that he does not want to have intercourse
 37

with his mother likewise his sister, neither intends to kill his father (Kafka on the Shore 189).

Due to the harsh circumstances and cruel psychological abuse he experiences, Kafka acquires

those qualities. In accordance with Martinez’s view, Kafka’s attributes will change after he

inters the world of psyche where his actual transformation occurs (qtd. in Rowland57).

The reader throughout the story learns that Kafka hates his father because he throws

the oedipal prophecy on him claiming that he will kill him and sleep with his mother and

sister. The hatred is highlighted in multiple passages within the storyline including a dialogue

between Kafka and Sakura the night he finds blood on his shirt with no memory of why,

when, and for what cause the blood appears. When Sakura tried to get to know Kafka, she

asks him whether he has been in accordance with his father beforehand, and when Kafka

remains silent she herself concludes that there is a failure of agreement and harmony with him

(Kafka on the Shore 80). The hatred towards the father and the failure of identification with

him is also represented in one of the dialogues of Kafka with Oshima after Kafka discovers

his father is murdered. He states that he does feel sad after hearing the news that his father got

killed, however, what he really feels sorrowful for is the wish of his father’s death was at an

earlier stage of his life (Kafka on the Shore 183). Wanlong Zhu affirms this notion by stating

that the ‘discord’ between Kafka and his father is evident in the novel mainly because of the

oedipal curse Kafka’s father predicts (783).

The morning Kafka leaves his house, he looks at his facial traits in the mirror and

demonstrates the wish to eradicate his father as well as his features that he inherited from him:

I gaze carefully at my face in the mirror. Genes I'd gotten from my father and

mother-not that I have any recollection of what she looked like-created this face. I

can do my best to not let any emotions show, keep my eyes from revealing

anything, bulk lip my muscles, but there's not much I can do about my looks. I'm
 38

stuck with my father's long, thick eyebrows and the deep lines between them. I

could probably kill him if I wanted to-I'm sure strong enough. (10)

This idea shows that Kafka does not only want to kill his father, but also to rub out any

physical features he heirs from him, which makes Kafka a case study for the Oedipus

complex theory, furthermore, one of the components of the Oedipus complex is hating the

father and the desire to kill him (Sofa 11). In respect to this point, Martinez diagnoses that

Kafka does not only wish his father’s death, but reaches the extent of diagnosing the reasons

behind his desire of death being not able to fulfill love with his wife (qtd. in Rowland 58).

This is presented in the dialogue with Ms. Saeki in which Kafka mentions that his father has

been in love with her; since he could not own her from the commencement or get her back

when she left him, Kafka concludes it is the reason why his father wants to pass away by

patricide (Kafka on the Shore 271). Kafka at the eighth day of his journey, wakes up with

blood in his shirt, however, he loses conscious yet cannot associate this incident with any

event. In this regard, Kafka thinks: “I shut the book, lay it on my lap, and think about my own

responsibility. I can’t help it. My white T-shirt was soaked in fresh blood (...) I imagine I’ll be

held responsible for all that blood (Kafka on the Shore 122). Although it is not completely

clarified in the novel, Kafka spiritually kills his father through Nakata’s body in an imaginary

space. This view is confirmed by Martinez stating that the patricide is not perpetrated by

Kafka ‘literally’ nor by Kafka ‘only’ (58). Wanlong Zhu analyzes this point by diagnosing

that Kafka transits himself spiritually in Nakata’s body and Kills his father through the world

of psyche (785), Martinez associates the idea of killing the father through a dream with

responsibility, highlighting that although Kafka kills his father through a dream he takes full

responsibility for it (qtd in Rowland 60). Hence, Kafka’s quality of holding the father

responsible for the curse partly vanishes in this sense, because he takes responsibility for his
 39

deed. Accordingly, Kafka achieves an aspect of the Oedipus complex which is the hatred of

the father and fulfills an aspect of his father’s curse which is patricide.

Among the characters that influence Kafka throughout his process of transformation

is Ms. Saeki, a middle aged women who works in the library he stays in. Kafka becomes

attracted to Saeki because she provokes feelings of nostalgia for him. Kafka later collects

fragments and events from Saeki’s life and links them with his own life and reveals that she is

his mother. The first coincidence is the line from the song she wrote for her boyfriend when

she was a teenager of which one of the lines mentions the fish falling from the sky,

corresponding to the extraordinary happening that takes place few days’ sooner in Kafka's

journey (Kafka on the Shore 212). Ms. Saeki also goes on a tour around Japan interviewing

people who survived lightening. Kafka links this incident to his father’s life retrieving an

article of a magazine that indicates the fact that his father experienced lightening few years

ago. Kafka connects both events and instantly discovers that Saeki met his father assuredly

meanwhile (Kafka on the Shore 232-3), and further says: “As Miss Saeki went around

interviewing people for her book, maybe she met my father” (233). These fragments from

both characters’ lives lead Kafka to inform Saeki that his father wanted to die because he

could not possess her few years back. The coincidences lead Kafka to ask Miss Saeki whether

she has kids and she does not want to answer his question (279). From this standpoint, Mark

Mussari affirms this aspect by approving that many pieces of the puzzles that belong to

Saeki’s lifetime as well as Kafka’s fit together. For example, Saki in her adolescence falls in

love with a boy called Kafka; then there is a possibility that he is Kafka’s father (82).

Kafka admits that he develops feelings of jealousy of Saeki’s dead boyfriend thinking:

I sit down on the sand, face the sea, and make a kind of picture frame with my

hands. I imagine the boy sitting there. A single white seagull flits aimlessly across

the windless sky. Small waves break against the shore at regular intervals, leaving
 40

behind a gentle curve and tiny bubbles on the sand. All of a sudden I realize –I’m

jealous of the boy in the painting. (223)

The above extract shows that Kafka’s feelings evolve to acquire a new level. The envious

aspect of love appears because he is in love with a woman, and at the same time wants to

occupy the position of her fiancé.

With the progress of the plot, Kafka recounts to Saeki the curse his father throws on

him and confesses to her his love and desire for her in the following dialogue:

“Why did your father put you under that curse?”

“He must've wanted me to take over his will,” I say.

“To desire me, you mean.”

"That's right," I say.

Miss Saeki stares into the cup in her hand, then looks up again.

“So do you - desire me?”

I give one clear nod. (272)

Here, Kafka explains to Saeki his theory by linking events of both their lives and further

extracts the reasons behind his father’s construction of the curse, he later confesses to Saeki

his love: “I’m in love with you, and that's what's important. I think you understand that”

(172). In this discussion, Kafka asks Saeki the following question: “Miss Saeki, would you

sleep with me?” (274). Kafka is sure that Saeki is his mother; however, he grows feelings

towards her. Additionally, having the potential of the fiancé to be Kafka’s father, Kafka

admits he is jealous of him, which realizes all the components of the oedipal theory. Sofe

Ahmed states that the jealousy towards the father and the desire to entirely seize the mother’s
 41

love as well as the desire to be sexually involved with her is what the Freudian oedipal theory

is all about (11). Therefore, Kafka realizes all the aspects of the Freudian oedipal theory.

Kafka’s feelings and desires towards Miss Saeki demonstrate changes in his

personality and qualities, since he escapes from his home running away from the oedipal

prophecy his father has; however, after falling in love with his mother he challenges the curse.

Furthermore, Kafka and Saeki go together to the shore where the painting of her boyfriend

was first painted. They both enter a status of being half in reality half in imagination. Kafka,

then, answers questions related to Saeki and her departed fiancé’s relationship feigning his

personality (278). Martinez describes their state as a ‘waking dream’ as Kafka takes the

identity of Saeki’s dead lover after she addresses him and identifies with him as her boyfriend

(qtd. in Rowland 60). That is their first step towards creating an intimate contact. They

immediately have intercourse after that discussion:

Together you walk along the beach back to the library. You turn off the light in

your room, draw the curtains, and without another word climb into bed and

make love. Pretty much the same sort of lovemaking as the night before. But

with two differences. After sex, she starts to cry. That's one. She buries her face

in the pillow and silently weeps. (278)

Clearly, Kafka regards Saeki as his mother, however, his fears of having sex with his mother

are elapsed. After having intercourse with Saeki, Kafka associates everything he feels for her

and everything that happens between them with the idea of them making up for the lost time

(Saeki agrees with him) he does not have with his mother since she leaves when he is at the

age of four. Kafka feels he lost a lot of crucial components in his childhood including his

mother’s presence and feels the need to recover them. Accordingly, Kafka finds no mental

image of his relation to his mother and now seeks to formulate memories with her so as he

builds something of her in his mind to come back to (Kafka on the Shore295). Moreover,
 42

Kafka’s view point underlines that what remunerates the time he lost with his mother in

childhood is the intercourse with her. Martinez assures this point by declaring that Kafka does

not only cope with the curse and ‘overcomes’ it, he actually and “consciously wants to have

it, he seeks to resolve his abandonment by her through romantic love and sexual fulfillment”

(qtd. in Rowland 60).

Until these events, Kafka is not completely transformed, i.e., Kafka’s exposure to the

Oedipal curse, killing his father, and sleeping with his mother does not completely change

him. He still blames his mother for abandoning him: “Why didn't she love me? Don't I

deserve to have my mother love me? … My mother didn't even hold me close when she left.

She turned her face away and left home with my sister without saying a word” (370). This

shows that although Kafka’s fulfillment of the sexual desires with Saeki he still blames her for

leaving him when he was a kid. This is presented in the words of the boy named Crow –

Kafka’s alter-ego- to Kafka:

You killed the person who's your father, violated your mother ... You thought

that would put an end to the curse your father laid on you, so you did everything

that was prophesied about you. But nothing's really over. You didn't overcome

anything. That curse is branded on your soul even deeper than before. You

should realize that by now. That curse is part of your DNA. You breathe out the

curse, the wind carries it to the four corners of the Earth, but the dark confusion

inside you remains. Your fear, anger, unease nothing's disappeared. They're all

still inside you, still torturing you. (359)

The above quotation shows that Kafka’s traits do not change entirely because of the

fulfillment of the oedipal drama since he still has wounds buried inside him as remnants of his

mother’s abandonment. To a greater extent, Crow advises Kafka to forgive his mother in
 43

order to be released from the psychological boundaries and qualities he obtained because of

his mother’s desertion:

Even though she loved you, she had to abandon you. You need to understand how

she felt then, and learn to accept it. Understand the overpowering fear and anger

she experienced, and feel it as your own - so you won't inherit it and repeat it. The

main thing is this: You have to forgive her. (372)

Martinez stresses this view by announcing that the main reason behind Kafka’s fear and

anger is he’s mother’s desertion, and in order to save himself he has to forgive her (qtd. in

Rowland 61). Kafka meets Saeki for the last time in the world of psyche, where she asks him

to forgive her he replies: “Miss Saeki, if I really do have the right to, then yes - I do forgive

you,” I tell her. Mother, you say. I forgive you. And with those words, audibly, the frozen part

of your heart crumbles” (411). Kafka’s words to Saeki show that he forgives her, moreover,

his fears and anger collapse in front of her and he no longer sees himself as victimized by

desertion, and through Crow’s words Kafka understands that his mother had a reason for

abandoning her child although she loves him. In support to this notion, Martinez states that

the world of psyche is where Kafka’s genuine transformation takes place (qtd. in Rowland

57). Furthermore, Martinez considers that Crow actually advises Kafka to ‘empathize’ with

his mother and that Murakami’s version of the Oedipus drama is focused on the abandonment

and recovery processes (qtd. in Rowland 61). Accordingly, Mark Mussari reports: “this

subjective “truth”, finally enabling Kafka to move beyond the anger and hurt in his heart,

becomes more important than actually proving that Miss Saeki is his mother”. (82)

To conclude, Kafka elopes from home leaving behind a monstrous father from whom

he receives psychological maltreatment. However, he ends up driven by fate towards the

oedipal omen his father foretells by reaching the region where the women he considers to be

his mother works. Kafka's journey is designed by the encounter of many characters as well as
 44

a series of decision making that lead him to self-discovery and to identity sculpture.

Furthermore, Kafka who runs away from his birth home to avoid the Oedipus prophecy, he

ends up consciously fulfilling it as a way to make up for the time he lost with his mother

through sexuality. Likewise, compensating for his childhood through sensuality and

intercourse with Saeki becomes more important to him than proving she is his mother, which

makes it a heartwarming experience that drive his internal protective walls to collapse. Due to

this, Kafka's established qualities vanish after the realization of the Oedipus from blame and

anger to forgiveness and empathy, and from escaping the curse to confronting it. Kafka by the

end of the plot, discharges the victimized trait acquired by his mother’s desertion, along with

becoming a mature and self-accepting teenager who takes responsibility for his actions and

decides to go back to the life he run from to start all over.

III. The Effect of Dreams on the Identity of Kafka Tamura

Kafka Tamura is a fifteen-year-old adolescent that is not only unable to have his

dream birthday party, but is also forced to leave his home and his father at the same day. This

young Japanese boy needs to escape his prophecy which says that he is going to murder his

father and sleep with his mother and sister before it twists to a reality. This prophecy has been

formulated by his unconscious that refuses to accept the fact that Kafka has been left behind.

It is a result to Kafka’s rejection to the idea that his mother has decided to leave his father,

and instead of taking him, she has preferred to take his adopted sister when he is at the age of

four. The trepidation of the prophecy had grown larger when Kafka recognizes that the

possibility of sleeping with his mother or sister increases daily with every woman he meets.

His fears dominate him because of his inability to visualize his mother or his sister’s features

no matter how much he tries. Furthermore, Kafka never had the possibility of living his

dreams life, but his life is full of dreams. During his journey Kafka’s dreams enhance

gradually. Despite their randomness, they become a reflection to his day time activities and a
 45

space where his hidden desires are expressed. This meaningless images he sees during

dreaming are the mirror of his fears and the first motivator in his recovering journey. As a

support to this concept, in her conference paper “An Affirmation of the Oedipus Complex

based on the dreams of Kafka on the Shore, A Character from Murakami Haruki Umibe No

Kafka.” (2010), the critic Wawat Rahwati thinks that the influence of dreams on Kafka

Tamura’s life confirms that dreams are meaningful images and a strong representation to any

individual’s psychology. She argues that throughout Kafka’s dreams Murakami confirms that

the only way to understand the character’s desires and fantasies is by grasping the meaning of

his dreams. Rahwati through her paper agrees that dreams are the only window that manifests

the unfulfilled hopes an oppressed person may have.

Dreams turn to be an important aspect in the story when Kafka starts to feel a sense

of instability in his emotions toward the people he meets and specially women. These feelings

are oppressed by the super ego because concreting them may destroy the social bounders and

confirm Kafka’s acceptance to his faith. This situation drives the unconscious to produce

dreams for Kafka in order to give him enough freedom to experience his feeling and to fulfill

his desires. The psychological state of Kafka all over his way of constructing his identity is

illustrated in two of his oddest dreams. Miss Saeki dream which realizes the Oedipus

prophecy and Sakura dream that breaks that prophecy making Kafka free.

Kafka’s psychological dilemma begins the moment he recognizes his unusual,

ambiguous feeling for a forty-year-old woman called Miss Saeki, the manager of Kamamura

library. Kafka meets Miss Saeki the first time through Oshima, the librarian and Kafka first

friend in Takamastu. The unusual interest of Kafka in Miss Saeki during his first tour in the

library gives the reader s strong first impression of Miss Saeki from Kafka’s perspective, the

narrator states:
 46

Miss Saeki, leading the tour, is a slim woman I'd guess is in her mid-forties. She's

a little on the tall side for someone of her generation. She's wearing a blue half-

sleeved dress and a cream-colored cardigan, and has excellent posture. Her long

hair is loosely tied back, her face very refined and intelligent looking, with

beautiful eyes and a shadowy smile playing over her lips, a smile whose sense of

completeness is indescribable. It reminds me of a small, sunny spot, the special

patch of sunlight you find only in some remote, secluded place. My house back in

Tokyo has one just like that in the garden, and ever since I was little I loved that

bright little spot. (37)

In this passage, the kind of expressions has been used such as ‘it reminds me ‘and ‘I love that

bright little spot’ beside the accurate description express the amount of nostalgic feelings that

Kafka is living toward Miss Saeki. The moment these emotions are identified, they become an

obsession in Kafka’s mind. Therefore, this point is sustained by Murki Mussari in his book

Today’s Writers and their Works: Haruki Murakmi. He argues that the impression of Kafka of

Miss Saeki pushes him to stay in the library and become responsible for her evening coffee

(74). They make him desires her and wants to own her regardless of the social and

consciousness contraindications. Indeed, the interest of Kafka become obvious to the reader in

the scene of age and beauty flirting. The narrator describes Kafka’s dalliance in one of Miss

Seaki’s onerous evenings. When she complains about her looking older “I imagine I look a lot

older when I get tired” (248). Kafka takes the opportunity to show his appreciation and flirt

with her saying: “Not at all. You look wonderful, like always” (248). His sentence makes her

smile and replies: “for someone so young, you certainly know how to flatter a woman” (248).

This little sweet sign motivates the young boy’s brain to develop more feelings and to extend

the obsession.
 47

In addition, the admiration takes another form with more approaching between the

two. Kafka decides to do radical changes within his personality in order to reach a forty

woman’s expectations through showing more maturation physically and mentally. He gets

involved in deep conversation with Miss Seaki depending on difficult vocabulary which is

rarely used by people in his age to win her attention. Kafka intends to use specific terms like

the term ‘damaged’ to dazzle Miss Saeki:

I felt like if I stayed there I’d be damaged beyond repair,” I say. “damaged?” Miss

Saeki says, narrowing her eyes. “yes,” I say. After a pause she says “it sounds

stranger for a boy in your age to use a word like damaged, though I must say I am

intrigued. What exactly do you mean by damaged? (229)

Through time, the fifteen-year-old boy notices that the only way to reach his complete

happiness is by owning Miss Saeki. Yet, he finds himself in a confrontation with his

superego. He is obliged to inhibit his desires since owning a mid-forties lady is unacceptable

neither by his conscious nor his environment. On the other hand, the unconscious of Kafka,

which is according to Freud is the responsible on human desires’ satisfaction, initiates a series

of dreams for him to fulfill his unrealized wishes. The dreams transform Miss Saeki to a

fifteen-year-old girl to break the taboo Kafka is having in his real life (Rahwari and Daniyati

59). The teenager boy starts dreaming of Miss Saeki as young version of herself. He confesses

his feeling of admiration without being sure if this girl is Miss Saeki or not. He describes it as:

She's sitting at the desk, chin resting in her hands, staring at the wall and thinking

about something. Nothing too complex, I'd say. It looks more like she's lost in

some pleasant, warm memory of not so long ago. Every once in a while a hint of a

smile gathers at the corners of her mouth. But the shadows cast by the moonlight

keep me from making out any details of her expression. I don't want to interrupt

whatever it is she's doing, so I pretend to be asleep, holding my breath and trying

 48

not to be noticed. She's got to be a ghost. First of all, she's just too beautiful. Her

features are gorgeous, but it's not only that. She's so perfect I know she can't be

real. She's like a person who stepped right out of a dream. (201)

The weirdness of the first dream causes Kafka a turmoil for days. It drives him to prepare his

conscious to unconscious activities. Different from the first time, by the second night the

young boy obliges his mind to stay awake during dreaming. He tries to remind himself to

focus on the girl’s lineaments in order to know who she is. Fortunately, the next morning

Kafka confirms that this teenager girl is a young version of Miss Saeki but he does not

understand why she visits him as young version of herself. Kafka stays in his bad recalling the

details of the dreams and hesitates:

The girl is seated at the desk, head in her hands, gazing at the painting. She's

wearing the same clothes as last night. Even if I squint and look hard, this time it's

too dark to make out her face. Strangely enough, though, her body and silhouette

stand out, floating there clearly in the darkness. The girl is Miss Saeki when she

was Young-I have absolutely no doubt about it. (222)

In the interpretation of dreams theory, Freud assumes that the source of dreams

stimulates from the external world. They are formulated from subjective experiences and

mental activities during sleep, so generally every aspect in the dream symbolize something

from the reality of the dreamer. The difficulty of understanding the effect of these dreams

refers to the way they are composed. Freud sets that every dream is composed of the manifest

content which is the actual literal subject matter of the dream. While the latent content is the

underlying meaning of these symbols. Now this awkward method influences the mental state

deeply. It allows the conscious to fulfill its desires and create a stable area for the ego and

superego. In this regard, Rodi Lalramarwii Hmar in his article “Locating The Other Half, A

Psychological Reading to Haruki Murakami Kafka on the Shore” (2015) interprets the
 49

protagonist’s dreams weirdness according to Freud’s theory of dreams interpretation. Kafka’s

dreams are composed of a Latent content which represent his desires for Miss Saeki, and the

Manifest content which picture Miss Saeki as young vision created by the unconscious. The

purpose behind this young version is to reduce Miss Saeki to a symbolic object, the

unconscious objectives her to suit Kafka’s temperament (34). Further, Rodi adds that Crow,

the alter ego of Kafka, convinces him that even though he is not responsible for this dreams,

they are a result of his daily thinking. Crow clarifies for him the power of this dream over his

awake decisions and his oedipal crises (33).

Sonika Jaggi clarifies that Kafka’s unconscious succeeds in attaining balance

between Kafka’s ego and super ego through the production of dreams. She insists that

Murakmi’s enteral purpose is to confirm that the sexual and the violent desires the individuals

have during their waking life are a normal part of their unconscious. In her article “Magic

Meets Philosophy in Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore” (2018), she affirms that:

Between the world of past, present, future lies the realm of dreams, sexual

fantasies and conscience that talks of another occult realm. Dreams are where

Kafka gets most of his unconsciousness run. He could violate sadistically both her

sister and her mother (supposed) in his dreams. Through explicit sexual fantasies,

Murakami describes the uninhibited and often animal like nature of our

unconscious mind. Kafka moves from an unconscious sexual fantasy with Ms.

Seiki to a conscious sexual encounter with her, riding freely on his conscience.

(89)

In other words, the lines Jaggi has use in her article assert that Kafka’s dreams in Kafka on the

Shore are the only tool to understand his mental struggle. The unconsciousness production of

sexual and violent dreams has prevented the teenager boy from the various external anxieties.
 50

Furthermore, she explains that the power of Kafka dreams has controlled his actions. They

have given him the strength to full fill his desires and exceeds his Oedipus complex.

The power of dreams control Kafka’s actions, the deep romantic view that the

unconscious has built encourages him to express his desire to Miss Saeki freely in real life.

Kafka’s dreams have created for him irresistible flow. This flow has been distracting enough

to play with the consciousness standers and to change the game to Kafka favor. These dreams,

in a mysterious way, make Miss Saeki accept Kafka’s confession even when he tells her his

theory about the possibility of her being his mother. She gets involved with him in sexual

affair for more than one time. Miss Saeki visits Kafka in his room to clear herself and tells

him that:

She picks up her black Mont Blanc pen, looks at it, puts it back where it was, then

looks straight at me. “What happened between us in your room last night is

probably part of that flow. I don't know if what we did last night was right or not.

But at the time I decided not to force myself to judge anything. If the flow is there,

I figured I'd just let it carry me along where it wanted”. (295)

From Miss Saeki words, the impact of dreams become obvious. The flow of dreams has hit

her deeply and pushes her to rebellion on the logic standers. The driving force if this

unconscious images has given Kafka the capacity to reach his goal of owning Miss Saeki.

The next essential dream in Tamura’s journey occurs after the murder of his father.

The investigation operation makes the cups notice the fifteen-year-old boy’s absence and start

tracking him. Meanwhile, Oshima takes Kafka back to the cabinet in the mountains for couple

of weeks. Even though it is not Kafka’s first time in the cabinet, but this time he is obliged to

leave Miss Saeki and to experience the night’s darkness all alone. The more he thinks about

his lover, the more his desires increase. He finds himself anxious because of his inability to
 51

fulfill his wishes. Miss Saeki leaves Kafka in life and her young version refuses to show up in

his dreams. In one of the rainy nights of the cabinet, instead of Saeki, Kafka dreams of

Sakura. Basically, Kafka meets Sakura the first day in his journey and spends the night at her

apartment. Later, according to Kafka’s theory, this girl turns to be his adopted sister. The

dreams reformulate the same events Kafka has lived when he was at Sakura’s house for the

first time. Kafka declares: “Instead, I dream of Sakura. Or is it a dream? It's all so vivid, clear,

and consistent, but I don't know what else to call it, so dream seems the best label” (341). It is

dark, Kafka is in his sleeping bag on the floor trying hard to sleep, he is thirsty. Sakura is in

her smooth pajamas deeply sleeping. The difference in the dream is that Kafka in spite of him

raping Sakura during her sleep and refuses to stop even when she wakes up and tries to

convince him that she maybe his sister. At the moment, Kafka wants to rape Sakura in order

to finish the prophecy and get his freedom. In describing the scene, she recounts:

“Take it out,” she admonishes me. “And let's pretend this never happened. I can

forget it, and so should you. I'm your sister, and you’re my brother. Even if we’re

not blood related, we’re most definitely brother and sister. You understand what

I'm saying? We're part of a family. We shouldn't be doing this.”

“It's too late,” I tell her.

“Why?” “Because I decided it is.” “Because you decided it is,” says the boy

named Crow. (343)

The sexual dreams the main character experiences during his sleep do not necessarily indicate

the same issue each time. Unlike the dream of Miss Saeki which is for Kafka a source of

wishes and fulfillment, the dream of Sakura is a complete threat. The moment Kafka has

dreamt of raping Sakura after he had a sexual affair with his theoretical mother he surrenders

to his faith. He understands that the only way to overcome his curse is to implement it. From
 52

this perspective, in her article “The Quest of Identity of Kafka Tamura in Kafka on the

Shore.” (2015). Nita Nural Romahita claims that the dream of Sakura is a sexual fantasy that

Kafka’s unconscious produces to show rebellion on everything going on in his life. The

purpose behind this dream is not Kafka’s desires for Sakura but because he is trying to resists

his father’s power: “By dreaming about raping Sakura, Kafka seems to use Sakura to break

free from his father’s prophecy. Ironically, his decision has made his father’s prophecy comes

true” (59). Crow asks Kafka to tell Sakura that he is forced to rape her to get over the spiritual

restrictions of his life. Crow whispers in Kafka head:

You don't want to be at the mercy of things outside you anymore, or thrown into

confusion by things you can't control. You've already murdered your father and

violated your mother-and now here you are inside your sister. If there's a curse in

all this, you mean to grab it by the horns and fulfill the program that's been laid

out for you. Lift the burden from your shoulders and live-not caught up in

someone else's schemes, but as you. That's what you want. (343)

The perfection sheds light on the shortfalls, normality intimidates the abnormality

and Sakura is Kafka’s biggest threat. Sakura’s personality confirms Kafka’s doubts. The way

she perceives the world sounds similar to the way Kafka’s sister would do, despite the fact

that he did not see his sister since the age of four. Kafka believes that in a perfect world

Sakura is the best candidate to his sister’s position. Yet, the contradiction between him and

her makes him anxious, she makes him recognize his weirdness and weakness and pushes him

to accept the world order. Hence, Maria Flutsh in her article “Girls and the unconscious in

Murakami Haruki's Kafka on the Shore” (2006) clarifies that Sakura’s abnormality implicitly

forbids Kafka from expressing his abnormality, her healthy approach to the world threats

Kafka’s transgression in his struggle against the order and against his father’s view. Even
 53

Sakura’s good intentions of building a sister-brother relationship with Kafka is a clear proof

that he will realize his father’s prophecy no matter how far he runs. Flutsh insists:

With her strong sense of connection to the real world, her hard-won capacity to

live in its patriarchal confines, and her sympathy and compassion, she is an

embodiment of the healed personality. Every aspect of her being contrasts

strongly with Kafka’s fetish for cleanliness and physical perfection. (71)

In this context, when Kafka’s unconscious brings Sakura in his dream without hesitation

Kafka raps her and ignores her requests when she asks him to stop. For him this is the only

way he could get his freedom and get over the faith restrictions. It is true that the dream of

Sakura represents the climax of fears and complexity but it is also a source of relief. This

dream is considered as life changer in the boy’s life. It has taught him flexibility and to defeat

his psychological obstacles by facing them. Kafka believes that this dream has made him free

and give him the chance to take control of his life.

Eventually, the healthy free young adult man Kafka Tamura has turned to is a result

of his psychological struggles. The awkward dreams the young boy had scared him but they

also have given him courage and strength. They have helped him discover himself and

recognize the power of his subconscious. They make him experience the weakness but it also

thought him maturity and how correct decision should be taken. Most importantly, these

dreams allow him to accept himself and to embrace all his insecurities. Further, Kafka before

his journey of transformation has developed features such as eloping the Oedipus curse,

seeing himself a victim of a mother’s abandonment and the unwillingness to forgive his

mother for her deed. Kafka after entering the world of psyche where his transformation

actually takes place. He does commit the Oedipal drama in order to make up for the time he

has lost with his mother after her desertion. The Oedipus has become a conscious act Kafka

commits. At the end, Kafka’s perception toward his mother changes from blame and anger to
 54

forgiveness and empathy letting go the victimized image he has constructed about himself

before his journey. The dreams and the Oedipus complex may be Kafka’s nightmares but they

are a huge part of his recovery.

The journey of Kafka Tamura is not an individual fight as much as it is a load voice

of a postmodern generation. Haruki Murakami builds Kafka’s struggle from his own life

battles. He uses the character’s complexity to discuss the identity confusion and the different

circumstances that affect it as a Japanese and as global dilemma for the modern generation.

Moreover, through providing a subconscious plot, the Japanese author asserts on the necessity

to stop considering the superficial material problem as the main cause behind personality

disorder. Instead he offers to shifts the focus to the different psychological factors that are

considered as a life threat since they are invisible and chronic.

This chapter invokes the Freudian theories to diagnose the growing up process of

Kafka Tamura. It explores the Oedipus complex and the dreams interpretation as the two

prevailing psychological aspects that constitute to his identity. Indeed, these aspects are

specified as the cause behind the remarkable shift in the protagonist’s life. In Kafka journey

the coded stage that is characterized by the mysteriousness made him look like a lost, divested

and self-ignorant teenager. However, the encoded stage has turned him to a smart young

adult, who has learned how to accepts his prophesy and to follow his dreams to reach

recovery. The analysis of this chapter also emphasizes on the necessity of healing the

psychological gaps and build a stable internal state that goes along with a healthy external one

in order to enjoy a healthy personality.

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Chapter Three: The Effect of Traumatic Experiences on Nakata Satoru’s Identity

Construction

The final chapter of this thesis is the second analytical chapter. This chapter sheds

light on the identity formulation of the second protagonist Nakata Satoru in Murakami

masterpiece Kafka on the Shore. It investigates the role of Trauma as a main psychological

factor that may destroy or build Nakata. Structurally, this chapter is composed of two parts.

Part one examines the different traumas the protagonist experiences highlighting their effects

on his mental and behavioral stability. For the second part, it explores the protagonist’s

personality before and after the traumatic events to identify the changes that construct

Nakata’s identity. The aim behind this analysis is to draw attention to the necessity of healing

the psychological issues to have a stable and strong identity.

I. The Impact of Traumatic Experiences on Nakata Satoru

Kafka on The Shore is the kind of novel that has enough amount of creativity to

supply readers with a dual plot in a single major one within a length of four hundred pages. It

is a fictional work that demands a complete focus to every detail because it narrates not only

the life story of one protagonist but rather two of them. Throughout this novel Murakami has

attended to structure his work according to numbers. The odd numbered chapters recount the

journey of Kafka identity construction whereas the even numbered chapters report the story of

Nakata Satoru. The Japanese man that has survived from traumatic tragedy and has enjoyed

stable life with no memory. The character is introduced as single man with no memory, no

intelligence and with no family left. He loves cats and he holds the ability of talking to them

so he spends his days helping his neighbors in finding their lost pets. While sometimes with

some flashbacks Nakata transforms to a nine years old boy who has lived his childhood

during the Second World War. A normal male child from an aristocratic educated family,
 56

calm but smart, never shows any excitement. The type of children that answers perfectly

whenever he is asked only but very hard to get involved in conversion with.

Nakata is like any human, a reflection of his memories and childhood events.

Unfortunately, his destiny has offered him a distorted growing up in the middle of the Second

World War circumstances. Although he never experienced physical harm, yet, his infancy

carries many painful moments. As a child, he subsists the fear of the unknown, the

displacement for no reason, and the permanent hunger. After Nakata moves with his family

from Tokyo to Yamanashi Prefecture, his life changes completely on 7th November 1944 in

the Rice Bowl Hill Incident. He is a nine years old fourth-grade student on a field trip with his

teacher Ms. Okamochi and fifteen class fellows. Ms. Okamochi organizes the tour for the

children to find extra food and because she observes that the woods would be the best place

for the students to forget about the war. During the process of collecting mushroom, the group

of children and their teacher see a light upon the sky and a few seconds later all of them fall

unconscious on the ground. Ms. Okamochi reports the event in the police station as follows:

I raced over to the spot and lifted up the children who'd fallen to the ground. Their

bodies were limp, like rubber that's been left out in the sun. It was like carrying

empty shells-the strength was completely drained from them. But they were

breathing fine. Their pulses were normal, and none of them had a temperature.

They looked calm, not at all like they were in any pain. I ruled out things like bee

stings or snakebites. The children were simply unconscious. (16)

She adds:

The strangest thing was their eyes. Their bodies were so limp it was like they were

in a coma, yet their eyes were open as if they were looking at something. They'd

blink every once in a while, so it wasn't like they were asleep. And their eyes
 57

moved very slowly from side to side like they were scanning a distant horizon.

Their eyes at least were conscious. But they weren't actually looking at anything,

or at least nothing visible. I waved my hand a few times in front of their faces, but

got no reaction. (16)

It can be seen from the above quotations that the situation of the children is sudden and

mysterious. It is true that the words Ms. Okamochi uses to recount the incident to the police

shows the degree of fear and confusion she felt at that moment. Yet on the other side, her

accurate description makes the scene of ‘slide unconscious bodies’ familiar to the people at

that time because of the war circumstances. Also, a close observation to Ms. Okamochi

behavior when she scans the children proves that she has enough experience to know that the

children are having no pain even when they have looked like dead bodies.

A few hours later the students became once again fully conscious and did not appear

to have any sort of ache. They seem as if they just wake up from a long sleep although it has

taken them a couple of minutes to recognize where they are. Luckily, the students were quick

enough to get back on their feet and went back to school with Ms. Okamochi. Doctor

Nakazawa declares that he has checked up on the students as soon as they arrived at school.

He states that the only symptom they have from the traumatic experience is their inability of

recalling the event. Shockingly, the incident has been completely erased from their memory

like if it never happened. The children have returned to their normal life. He says that; “They

attended class, as usual, sang songs, played outside during recess, everything normal kids did.

Their homeroom teacher, however, was a different story: she still seemed in shock” (29). In

contrast, Nakata remains unconscious for almost two weeks. Then, he has been transferred to

the military hospital and never come back again. At that time, there had been rumors that

soldiers of the Second World War have opened a toxic gaze and the children fall into it, but

no one has been able to reach the complete truth. Additionally, when the Rice Bowl Hill
 58

Incident has not caused any major impact on the children neither emotionally nor physically.

The country authorities’ banns any mention of the incident in the news or even between the

people of the village. Especially, with the war conditions the country is having, and with the

military fears of the prevalence of antiwar ideas among people. They have decided that it

would only cause unrest to people. As a result, the story is closed and no clear explanation is

given to Nakata situation. Doctor Nakazawa clarifies that “the whole thing was an odd,

unpleasant affair. Even to this day it's like a weight pressing down on me” (29). As a result,

the collective decision the country has applied has destroyed the life of some of its

individuals. In order to preserve the international image, the village of Yamanashi has been

silenced and Nakata rights has been ignored.

The war tragedy has hidden so many horrific events, the story of Nakata Satoru is

one of those. Although, Nakata spends rest of his life in Tokyo after he exits the military

hospital finishing two weeks of coma. The most important puzzle of his life stays in

Yamanashi with Ms. Okamochi. In the small town, after a while, everyone sounds like they

forget about the young boy who has never come back except for his teacher. The woman that

wastes her life regretting being a victim of her own fear. The one that blames herself on the

long nights of thinking, but never has encouraged herself to confess her mistake to anyone.

She tries to forget as everyone did, yet the feeling of guilt has kept her memory fresh like if

the incident repeats itself daily in her memory.

On October 19, 1972, and after almost twenty-eight years. Ms. Okamochi writes a

confession letter to an old friend and at the same time a psychologist sharing her reading of

Nakata’s situation. She recites that the incident which has changed Nakata forever, his

education and his perception in life is not a result of collective trauma as much as it is

individual childhood violent trauma. Furthermore, she adds that the real traumatic event that

has damaged Nakata is related to random behavior she has committed. Ms. Okamochi admits
 59

that during that time for the first time in her adult life. She faces an unexpected period while

she is on the field trip with Nakata fourth grade group. Even though she manages the situation

with some towels she has in her bag. When the children are in the middle of searching for

food, Nakata finds one of the bloody towels and bring it to her under the children’s eyes. Ms.

Okamochi gets overwhelmed by the feeling of shame and slaps him in front of his friends and

then when he collapses and all children followed him. Nakata’s teacher clarifies that despite

the fact that the incident has never reached the press because the government fears that it

could be considered as violent behavior toward students in schools during warfare (93). She

asserts that her fierce action has revived Nakata all painful childhood traumatic experiences.

Her action has harmed his mental and physical abilities since the child has been facing a

massive pressure from home to perform well at the level of education and manners. She

reports that:

If there was any violence taking place in a family like that it was bound to be

something more complicated and less direct than what farm kids experience... The

kind of violence I displayed then may very well have dealt a fatal blow to

whatever feelings had been budding inside him... I can still see the look on his

face as I was slapping him. The tremendous fear and resignation he was feeling.

(95)

In this passage, Ms. Okamochi admits her responsibility towards what has happened to

Nakata. She expresses her feelings of guilt of practicing violence on a child generally and on

Nakata specifically despite her knowledge of the family pressure set on the child. Not to

mention her regrets for not noticing Nakata phobia of being hit before the look that has

followed the slap. Together with collective war trauma and the violent individual trauma Ms.

Okamochi has committed, Nakata Satoru can be one of the hardest cases of healing. If the

impact of a single trauma can result permanent injury, a double traumatic events can destroy
 60

its victim at so many levels. The possibility of recovery is almost impossible specially when

the damage hits the mental and the behavioral capacities at the same time.

I.1 The Impact of Trauma on Nakata’s Memory

Over a century psychologists have agreed on the direct impact of trauma on the life

of its victims, calming that any kind of traumatic experience can cause an injury at the mental,

behavioral, and physical level. On the other hand, the childhood violent trauma is counted as

the hardest type of traumas to understand and to heal from. It causes physical harm like

chronic health conditions and common physical disorders. Besides hampering the cognitive

development of the brain during the process of identity construction, memory loss, and also

hormones changes that result emotions instability (Nelson and Carver 802). Hence, when

Sigmund Freud has published his work Beyond the Pleasure Principles (1920) the claims that

affirms that trauma cause brain diseases have been confirmed. The book has given more

specific details about the areas that get damaged or changes its regular functions after the

traumatic event. Freud submits the memory repression principle to argue that memory is the

most affected area. Basically, this concept relies on the idea that people defense mechanisms

activists when a traumatic experience submerge the brain so they can pass them. In childhood

trauma case, the brain stimulates a mechanism that involves the automatic and unconscious

repression of the traumatic memory. The consequence of this mechanism is that the victim no

longer recollects or retain awareness of the experience. The traumatized victim not only

forgets about the event but also the people involved, the place, and his feelings at that moment

(Otgaar et al. 4-5).

In Kafka on the Shore the inability to remember and retrieve subjectiveness besides

the luck of conscious memory is criteria related to the people who experience a violent trauma

during their youth. Nakata Satoru is the perfect example of the situation since the young boy

is affected by individual childhood trauma in the middle of a collective one. For this reason,
 61

when Ms. Okamochi slaps the young boy in front of his classmates, his brain turn-on a

mechanism that targets the memory. Now inside Nakata’s head, the slap is a sign that would

restore all the horrific events the child been exposed to once it reaches memory. In this case,

Freud’s concept of repressed memory is applied to protect the child from a mental breakdown.

The brain in a condition of unconsciousness takes the opportunity to wipe Nakata not only

memories linked to the momentary event but also memories that shape his identity such as his

name, age, parents, and any kind of knowledge he had before. After two weeks of coma, the

military psychiatrist interprets that what has happened to Nakata is call a luck memory

situation and not memory loss. The slapping incident has turned the boy to the blank state and

made him looks like a one-day baby at the age of nine and ever after (Lakshmi and

Soubhogya4212). This scene is illustrated well in the description of the author:

Out of the blue he sat up in bed, stretched and looked around the room. He’d

regained consciousness, and medically he was perfectly fine. Soon, though, we

realized he’d lost all his memory. He couldn’t even remember his own name. The

place he lived in, his school, his parents’ faces – it was all gone. He couldn’t read,

and wasn’t even aware that this was Japan or the Earth. He couldn’t even fathom

the concept of Japan or the Earth. He’d returned to this world with his mind wiped

clean. The proverbial blank Slate. (63)

From Nakata medical examinations, the doctors report that the blank slate situation does not

appear in the regular taste. It requires exceptional observation to the person natural reactions

to normal stuff. The blank slate is noticed when the traumatize person cannot recall his

personal information and when people around him remarks his inability to grasp his

surrounding world.

Wattanagun and Chotiudompant in their article “The Quest and Reconstruction of

Identity Haruki Murakami Kafka on the Shore.” (2009) explains that the gap of memory,
 62

trauma had cause to Nakata pushes him to be a passive actor in his own life. The blank

situation made him live a mutual aversion between his half personality and his society. During

the journey of recovery, he loses the basic understanding of familiar concepts that are taken as

unalterable facts by people around him. Further, the childhood traumatic experience

transforms the smart intellectual boy to a strange man who reaches the age of sixty not

recognizing the social or political system he belongs to. As a result of that, a feeling of

emptiness emerges inside Nakata’s self and destroys the remaining bounds that relate him to

the real world. Nakata describes his internal spirit saying: “It’s not just that I'm dumb.

Nakata’s empty inside…Nakata’s like a library without a single book. It wasn’t always like

that. I used to have books inside me. I used to be normal, just like everybody else” (284). In

this regard, it is obvious from Nakata words that he is aware about his losses even though he

cannot determine them. The old man knows that he had a normal life before he turns to

someone different from everyone, still he cannot remember the cause behind this change. This

situation illustrates the amount of damage the trauma inflicts on the brain.

Evidently, forgetting the collective memories within the individual memories rises a

sense of alienation within Nakata character. First, a social alienation, the boy is alienated and

marginalized in his community because of his different outlook and practices. As he gets

older he builds new explanations to himself and formulates his world as kind of defense

mechanism. A world where the mayor of his village is the president of the country, and only

coins’ money is the money that has value because of its concrete impact on his daily

activities. His house is a gift from the government and the reason behind his existence is to

find cats that misses their way home. Next, he experiences a self-alienation, it starts the

moment the boy wakes up from his coma and fails in different intelligence tasks not to

mention his use of language that has taken abnormal direction. The military doctors report

that in a normal conversation, Nakata completely misuses the different parts of speech. He
 63

expresses his needs with the third person format instead of using the pronoun ‘I’ for example,

when he addresses himself he says “Nakata’s quite hungry” and “Nakata has a favor to ask

you, Mr. Hoshino.” Simply because the meaning of ‘I’ has despaired with rest of the

knowledge he had before the incident (28-9). At this point, Nakata has lost another important

element of his identity. Since, language is part of identity construction because some of its

concepts helps the individual value himself.

As has been noted from the above analysis. The main consequence of traumatic

experiences generally is the mental injury. In the case of Nakata Satoru, the childhood trauma

has attacked the cognitive development of his brain in sensitive period of his identity

construction journey. Nakata’s trauma has repressed all of his memories which has led to the

loss of all of them. It has turned him to the blank state and alienated him from his

environment. Also, it has wipe his basic understanding and destroyed the previous knowledge

he once had about common concepts. Nakata’s brain has developed an unusual functioning

method to protect his mental health.

I.2 The Impact of Trauma on Nakata’s Behavior

After, Freud’s belief is confirmed concerning the direct influence of childhood

trauma on the cognitive development of the human mind. The Austrian neurologist continues

on the same path for more than ten years, and besides the cognitive consequences, he has been

able to state new behavioral and emotional outcomes. He has identified some symptoms that

characterize the personality of the victim and may controls his behavior in difficult

circumstances. Freud and all the modern psychologists that consider his notes as primary data

in researches claim that even though the age and type of trauma can have an essential impact

on the personal attitudes. The characteristics of life-threatening experiences like wars,

concentration camp experiences, civilian disasters, child abuse, and childhood trauma are

shared between most traumatize people (kolk 2). Additionally, the survivors generally after
 64

the traumatic event evolve a quite complicated reaction to similar cases. They develop an aura

of anxiety and aggressiveness surrounds their nerve. They turn into a defensive position

whenever something unusual interferes with their comfort zone and shows some exaggerated

reactions because of the brain irregular functioning. In similar traumatic events the brain

emergency mechanism increases the level of stress and causes some changes at the level of

the amygdala. Which is an almond-shaped structure nestled deep inside the brain that

dominates the amount of negative emotions someone expresses in stressful incidents.

Together with aggressiveness, the traumatized people grow a chronic feeling of helplessness

and loss of control. If a traumatized individual finds himself in a crisis that cause him physical

or emotional pain. First, he applies Dissociation, which means he became capable of

switching between two personalities, the ‘emotional personality’ that is shaped by trauma and

the ‘apparently normal personality’ in order to be able to detach himself from his current

environment whenever a threat takes place. Second, he would be unable to control his body or

mind. He would forget his internal self and commits some unexpected actions that he wishes

he has done in the first dilemma. Some of this traumatized individuals choose defensive

actions like running away or hiding somewhere and others lose control and attack their

offender (8).

Most recently, different researches in the psychological field have proven the strong

interconnectedness between trauma and the violent behavior. They set that the traumatic

experiences that happens during the person growing up is a factor that determines his criminal

side. Of course the child abuses and witnessing violence continually is the most common risk

factors for post-traumatic reactions, aggression, and antisocial behavior. On this subject,

Ardino Vittoria, explains that trauma can be a major factor behind all the multifaceted

expressions of violence endured or perpetrated. She assumes that:

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Victims of violence are vulnerable to a constellation of outcomes. The Chronic

and prolonged exposure to violence may evolve into a dysfunctional routine

perpetrated in both family and community contexts creating ‘‘a link between

experiences of violence as victims and later experiences of violence as a

perpetrator. (1)

Ardino believes that the connection between violent trauma and behaviors takes the form of

cause consequence relationship. She assumes that once an individual is expose to a violent

trauma the possibility of him being exposed to violent again are very high. However, the

process of violence may differ because the traumatized person can turn from a victim to a

perpetrator. In this case the identity formulation procedure can take a complex curve.

As a child building a strong, stable personality can be a challenging process when the

child grows up in a violent atmosphere. Nakata’s childhood has been confined between World

War 2 violence and personal childhood abuse which lead to a behavior defect within his

identity. Although this boy either at the individual or collective level been largely exposed to

violence, he succeeds in creating a balanced outward behavior that is depicted by kindness

and credulity. In contrast, the coming years, Nakata discovers aggressive and criminal

attitudes within his softness. When he meets new characters that put him in new life traumatic

experiences during his searching for lost cats. As shown above, Nakata’s trauma has stolen all

what he has, but it has given him a gift that makes him appreciate himself more. This gift is

kind of a talent that allows him to communicate with cats and talking to them.

One day Nakata has been hired by a family that lives in his neighborhood to look for

their lost cat Goma. Like usual, Nakata accepts the job and commences his journey of search.

the old man spends days holding in his hand a photo of Goma and show it to different cats. He

involves in a lot of conversation in order to get some instructions, however, despite the

countless tries he goes home with no improvement. The next morning Nakata decides to visit
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the vagabond cats’ streets, there where he reunites a cat called Otsuka. By the time they get to

know each other Otsuka tells Nakata that he did not see any cat with Goma specifications, yet

he suggests to guide him to an abandoned field that most of lost pets stay in. Otsuka tells

Nakata that lot of cats have despaired in the last period because of act catcher called Johnny

Walker. This man aggressively hunts cats, take them to his place to kill them and use them in

his spiritual practices. From Otsuka’s talk Nakata builds emotions of hate toward Johnny

Walker and feels the necessity to fulfill his curiosity about this man who kills his favorites

companions.

Soon after, Nakata has his fateful encounter with the cat catcher. The moment he gets

into Johnny walker house he observes all the dead bodies of cats in different refrigerators

which makes him enter into a state of anxiety. Couple mints latter, Johnny walker shows

himself to Nakata and get into deep conversation with him, discussing with him war, death,

his unwillingness of living and his project of collecting cats’ souls. Also, Johnny offers to

give Goma to Nakata in exchange for Nakata’s killing him: “If I want to die, I have to get

somebody else to kill me. That's where you come in. I want you to fear me, to hate me with a

passion - and then terminate me. First you fear me. Then you hate me. And finally you kill

me” (131).

Nakata refuses completely Johnny request, explaining to him that even though he has

lived in war violence circumstances, but he is not the sort of people who kill someone else

and he will never be. “Nakata's never ever killed anyone before. It is not the kind of thing I'm

suited for” (131). It did not take much of time till Nakata doubts his decision. He witnesses

Johnny kills three cats by slicing open their chests, extracting and eating their hearts, and

cutting off their heads. Nakata snaps and kill Johnny walker according to the plan and saving

Goma and the two cats in the remaining bag before they are murdered in same way.
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Apparently, the violent attitude Nakata commits is not a random act related to the

current situation. The action is considered as deep hidden reaction to his own trauma. The

moment Nakata meets Johnny Walker his psychological state develops a sense of dissociation

immediately since the cat catcher transforms the peaceful present to a dark past. Where he

uses war language as a tool to provoke Nakata ‘emotional personality’ that would bring to life

all the harsh flashbacks the old man lived. “You 've got to look at it this way: this is war. You

're a soldier, and you have to make a decision. Either I kill the cats or you kill me” (131). The

call of war rises Nakata anxiety, making him see all its aggressiveness in Johnny’s actions and

make him believe that the use of violence is allowed to save the situation. In addition,

witnessing the cast’s murder in the middle of a bloody atmosphere makes Nakata lose control

over himself. He tries to warn the cat catcher couple of times because he knows that handling

the situation is no more possible. Nakata bags: “Please, M r. Walker, Nakata can't stand it

anymore. Please, stop it. If you don’t, Nakata’s going to go crazy. I don’t feel like myself

anymore” (136). He feels helpless in front of Johnny Walker authority over him. It reminds

him of the power of war that has destroyed his life, the power of Ms. Okamochi that give her

the right to give violent reaction because of her authority. In this case Nakata childhood and

war traumas led him to discovers his dark self. Like if the sift nice Nakata is replaced by

aggressive person who is ready to do anything to protect the scared child in him. The old

trauma pushes the old man to use violence as technique to cope with his old, new and coming

life threatening experiences (Anderson 17-8).

As a support to the idea, Welch Patricia in her article “Responsible Dreaming:

Dreamscapes and Trauma Response in Haruki Murakami Kafka in the Shore.” (2012) argues

that victims of trauma keep going with their lives with a different kind of defense mechanism

than the one they have used to have before the trauma. She explains that if a traumatized

person faces a similar situation he depends on one of the two major trends to overcome it.
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Either he adopts the trauma splitting trend which helps the person inbox himself from the

situation by creating a fictional world. Or he depends on Trauma repetition, through which the

person repeats the behavior being applied on him. Indeed, for Nakata enforcing a criminal

attitude on Johnny Walker helps him broke up with the exploitation node. Killing the cat

catcher is considered as the normal reaction Nakata must give after all what he been too, it

makes him a normal person and no more half shadow (219).

To summarize, Nakata Satoru experiment it another proof to the reliability of

Sigmund Freud theories. His case determines the negative impact of trauma on the person

behaviors. This analysis depicts anxiety and aggressiveness, helplessness, and criminal

attitudes as a massive consequences of traumatic experiences. Also, it presents the behavioral

instability as essential obstacle in the construction of Nakata Satoru identity.

II. Nakata Satoru’s Identity Between the Past and the Present

II.1 Satoru Nakata’s Identity Before November 7th ,1944

Literature usually depicts the society including a reflection of the aftermath of trauma

on individuals that comes as response to traumatic circumstance (Lekshmi and Soubhagya

4209). Being a Japanese novelist who witnessed a gas attack and an earthquake happening,

Haruki Murakami is best known for his portrayal for the disturbed human psyche, because

after the happenings he interviewed citizens about the events’ effects on them. This depiction

of the remnants of trauma on individuals focuses more on ordinary people, and that theme is

portrayed merely through Satoru Nakata. This makes a person in constant seeking for

selfhood and personal identity (Lekshmi and Soubhagya 4209). Nakata is a victim of Second

World War, however, what really changes him is the traumatic exposure to violence. One's

life can be completely reversed after suffering a shocking happening, the best example is

Nakata. His school teacher Ms. Okamochi sends a letter to one of the psychologists
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responsible for the analysis of the Rice Bowl Hill incident, she describes Nakata’s

qualifications in the following way:

He was the brightest and had the best grades. He had very pleasant features and

always dressed well. He was a gentle boy and never butted in where he didn’t

belong. Never once in class did he volunteer an answer, but when I called on him,

he would always give the correct response, and when I asked his opinion he’d

give a logical reply. He caught on right away, no matter what the subject. Every

class has a student like that, one who’ll study what he needs to without

supervision. Who you know will top the university and get an excellent job. A

child who is innately capable. (94)

The above quotation emphasize qualities related to Nakata including the intellectual skills; the

teacher’s account highlights Nakata’s brilliance in class lectures providing a proof of the

accurate answers he participates with, as well as the ‘logical opinions’ he shares. This

demonstrates Nakata’s rationality and exceptionalism taking into consideration his cognitive

functioning and analytical abilities. That makes his teacher see his uniqueness as a prominent

learner that every class has only a single pupil of and predicts a prosperous future for Nakata.

The teacher further reports that Nakata’s identity and qualities are shaped by the

psychological abuse he receives from his kin to enhance his personal qualifications. In this

vein, Pathok Tanuja explains: “Nakata had a difficult childhood. He was under pressure from

home to perform well” (96). Nakata’s intricate childhood surely has negative impact on his

behavior. Furthermore, Ms. Okamochi provides delineation for the architecture of the

psychology of Nakata:

Every so often I felt a sense of resignation in him. Even when he did well on

difficult assignments, he never seemed happy. He never struggled to succeed,

never seemed to experience the pain of trial and error. He never sighed or cracked
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a smile. It was as if these were things he had to get through, so he just did them.

He handled whatever came his way efficiently - like a factory worker, screwdriver

in hand, working on a conveyor belt, tightening a screw on each part that comes

down the line. (94-5)

This passage underlines Nakata’s acceptance to the undesirable but inevitable things,

moreover, Nakata’s success is predetermined by his relatives’ who programmed him like a

machine that in turn fulfills tasks without any emotive reactions. Despite his immediate and

effortless success provided by his high capacities, Nakata does not blissfully react with it.

Pathok Tanuja stresses this notion by analyzing the psychological aspect of Nakata stating

that he lost his natural infantile ‘openness’ that results from the domestic psychological abuse.

This is mirrored in his absence of the ‘sense of accomplishment’ as well as his body language

considering his wincing movements as his teacher detects (96). Nakata’s teacher further adds:

“The children get overwhelmed by the tasks in front of them ... When they're treated like that,

children start to crawl inside a shell and keep everything inside.” (Kafka on the Shore 95).

This point underlines the feature of closeness and social distance that Nakata maintains within

his social circle. The Rice Bowl Hill incident is the turning point in Nakata’s life, because he

is an indirect victim of the war who is exposed to childhood trauma (Lekshmi and Soubhagya

4211), therefore, “Nakata suffers from individual trauma as part of collective trauma” (4211-

2). The novel later entails Nakata’s tragic story of which the fabric reveals his characteristics

related to his wiped away memory and intelligence; it counteracts his teacher’s prediction of

when he was nine years old. He loses himself within the chaos of war that all his old identity

becomes blank transforming him to a whole new person.

I.3 Nakata’s Identity after November 7th, 1944

Jeffrey Eugenides once said: “It’s often said that a traumatic experience early in life

marks a person forever, pulls her out of line, saying, “stay there. Don't move” (Goodreads).
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Unlike Kafka who represents a ‘traditional’ hero pattern with such a sophisticated behaviors

and high intellectual abilities making him the youngster with the wisdom of an old man,

Nakata counteracts Kafka because he is the gaffer with a brain of a child (Chalhoub 24).

Another noticeable distinction between Kafka and Nakata's journeys is that Kafka does

recover by the end, however, Nakata loses aspects of his identity that he never gains back.

Therefore, Nakata is said to be in a ‘fugue state’ because he is somehow plucked from his old

environment to be a totally new being. With his memory removed and circumstances that

change, Nakata becomes characterized by an existential crisis of trying to find the meaning

behind his life wondering: “what am I, anyway? What is Nakata?” (284).

Throughout the plot, Nakata’s storyline provides hints about him being and feeling as

an empty shell that is hollow inside. That puts him as an archetype of Murakami’s postwar

characters of which his literary sphere is noteworthy with (Tanuja 90). This results from the

mental and emotional disability that left him without the intellectual faculties that help him

recall what happened in his past, or make him aware of his surroundings therefore Tanuja

refers to him as ‘a product of war’ (97). Murakami portrays Nakata’s emptiness in the

following passage:

Nakata let his body relax, switched off his mind, letting things flow through him.

This was natural for him, something he’d done ever since he was a child, without

a second thought. Before long the border of his consciousness fluttered around,

just like butterflies beyond these borders lay a dark abyss. Occasionally his

consciousness would fly over the border and hover over that dizzying, black

crevasse... That bottomless world of darkness, that weighty silence and chaos, was

an old friend, a part of him already. Nakata understood this well. (79)

This passage profoundly draws an image of the blankness that characterizes Nakata’s inner

self, as well as the senselessness of his existence. Moreover, Nakata’s wiped away memory
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and brain damage left him with no ability to interact with his surroundings or with himself

just like an infant and does not emotionally react with any phenomenon or incident, neither

processes what happens in his environment. Generally, this viewpoint finds consensus among

scholars and analysts who in turn perceive Nakata just as he describes himself: ‘an empty

vassel’. Tanuja confirms that after the traumatic incident of the Rice Bowl Hill, Nakata is

permanently mutated into a new being detached from all his old characteristics; hence the

disruption of the relationship with his parents or any other interpersonal relationship did

neither positively nor negatively affect him, his prospects in life change, he has a very limited

emotional framework (96-7). Sonika Jaggi believes that all the characters of Kafka on the

Shore use the word ‘empty’ in many ways to describe themselves, among them is Nakata who

suffers from ineptness to find meaning of his life which causes deep injures in his soul (88).

This aspect can further be traced to one of the conversations Nakata has with Hoshino in

which he gives a full account for himself:

It's not just that I'm dumb. Nakata's empty inside. I finally understand that. Nakata's

like a library without a single book. It wasn't always like that. I used to have books

inside me. For a long time, I couldn't remember, but now I can. I used to be normal,

just like everybody else. But something happened and I ended up like a container with

nothing inside. (284)

This analogy puts the reader into a full understanding of Nakata’s perspective about himself,

especially after he highlights how much easier and different his life could be if he is not

‘dumb’ or empty inside just like an empty library. He even thinks his life could be normal

without his emptiness, for example, he could be married, having kids, a car and a house just

like his brothers (Kafka on the Shore 284). Another side that can show Nakata’s emptiness is

the quality of being a half shadow of himself that in turn makes him incomplete. Nakata tells

this to Hoshino: “But you know, Mr. Hoshino, Nakata doesn't have anybody. Nothing. I’m
 73

not connected at all. I cannot read. And my shadow’s only half of what it should be” (284).

The aspect of Nakata being a half shadow is because he survived the war. Moreover, the

traumatizing event of being exposed to physical abuse by his teacher makes Nakata fall

unconscious for several days, however, what makes him irreparable in terms of memory and

mental skills (unlike the other children go back to being normal after the collective coma) is

that the entrance stone opens up to the other world where the children fall.Nakata leaves his

half shadow there. In the conversation with Hoshino, Nakata explains that the main reason

behind him chasing the stone is to find the second half of his shadow that he left in the

imaginary world where the entrance opens during the world war exactly on the 7th of

November 1944: the date of the Rice Bowl Hill incident (Kafka on the Shore 285). Pathak

Tanuja provides a possible clarification of the incident; the two world war soldiers open the

entrance stone exactly at the same day of the traumatic incident where all the children fall to

the other realm and come back to normal except for Nakata who loses half of himself: his

memories, abilities of reading and writing and having a pale shadow that makes Nakata

shallow representation of himself permanently and even in the physical world (95). Deirdre

Flynn describes this state of Nakata as a life only “half lived” (155). Another segment of

Nakata’s lost shadow is sexuality that too vanishes in the other dimension leaving Nakata as a

sexless man not even capable of processing the meaning of sensuality. When Nakata meets

Ms. Saeki before she dies, he informs her that he lost his half shadow during war and just like

he lost his memory he lost his sexuality too that he cannot discriminate between “a right or a

wrong sexual desire” (364). Paul Hurt in this sense describes Nakata as “a human that only

partly have been” (162) and that he is among the characters that Murakami normally develops

as losing some parts of themselves and become none sexual (163). That is, Nakata’s

emptiness is caused by him never actually emerging from the collective coma which makes
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him a hollow shell with nothing inside, that’s Nakata’s sense of emptiness is not only depicted

by Murakami but actually finds its roots within Nakata’s introspection.

Another quality Nakata develops after the incident is completely relying on fate.

Because of the limited mental capacities to process or analyze what life offers him, Nakata is

entirely devoid from the attribute of decision making, hence he does not plan for his future

life. In one of the events when Johnnie Walker sends a dog to Nakata, he thinks in the

following way:

Walking behind this monstrous dog made Nakata feel that people were getting out

of his way. Maybe they thought he was walking the dog, minus a leash. And

indeed some people shot him reproachful looks. This made him sad. I'm not doing

this because I want to, he wanted to explain to them. Nakata's being led by this

dog, he wanted to say. Nakata's not a strong person, but a weak one. (114)

The above quote proves that Nakata is mostly either lead by the others or by his own fate, as

the dog appears to him he does not attempt to assess the situation and see it as a subject to

acceptance or refusal, he is rather guided by a dog to an unknown destination and without

hesitation. By nearly the end of the story, Nakata and Hoshino are sitting by the beach,

Hoshino questions Nakata about the function of the ‘entrance stone’ (which the reader

understands that it is what closes the imaginary realm). Nakata’s answer denotes the same

conception: “That Nakata doesn't know. I'm doing what I’m doing because I must. But I have

no idea what will happen because of what I do. I'm not so bright, so it’s too hard for me to

figure out. I don’t know what’s going to happen.” (320). That is, even though he is searching

hard to find the stone, Nakata is completely clueless about the stone’s location or role and

wholly depends on fateful guidance rather than planning for in resolutions. In support to this

view, Tanuja deems Nakata as ‘directionless’ to the extent that anyone affects him, and that in

turn is a result of the emptiness and the simplicity of his life which is marked by the
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incompetence to make choices and absence of intersection in his existence (92-3). Sonika

Jaggi additionally signifies this viewpoint by stating that Nakata’s way of living is very

simple since he does not know his following step in life; the vagueness of his road makes him

completely reliant on fate in fulfilling his actions (87). In all the events in Nakata’s storyline,

fate is the factor that dominates his steps which can be seen as a fate driven pathway and not

of determinism and personal choices, that clearly appears as a result of amnesia and the

mental challenges imposed on him.

Nakata’s identity is also determined by the lack of the social, economic and political

awareness. Social norms are set of behaviors agreed upon by individuals in order to preserve

healthy relationships and approval from the other, and in turn avoiding their disapproval.

Plain humans with ordinary or average mental competence respect the social restriction and

maintain wholesome public behavior, unlike Nakata whose conduct show less to no

awareness of this. In one of the conversations with Hoshino in a restaurant, Nakata mentions -

vociferously - that he is in need to use the bathroom for defecation, Hoshino in response

clarifies: “Hey, not so loud. People are still eating here.” Then Nakata replies: “I’m sorry.

Nakata's not very bright” (194). This articulates the juvenile and spontaneous public behavior

that Nakata possesses because of the lack of intelligence the Rice Bowl Hill incident that left

him with a brain damage. Another form of the lack of awareness highlighted in the character

Nakata’s personality is the absence of the economic awareness. When Nakata loses his job,

the job owners provide him with retirement money which he deposits in a bank account

managed by his cousin since Nakata cannot process any paperwork or financials, hence his

cousin uses all his money to pay his debts (198), Nakata’s reaction towards this is explained

in the following quote:

He wasn't angry, either, that his cousin had squandered his life savings. Naturally

he understood it was too bad it happened, but he wasn't disappointed by the whole
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affair. Nakata had no idea what a resort condo was, or what “investing” meant,

nor did he understand what taking out a “loan” involved. (198)

Hence, Nakata’s brain damage makes him incapable to comprehend such complex economic

affairs. This can further be linked to Wirth’s point stating that Nakata does not understand

numbers more than twenty (Wirth 9), consequently, he does not emotionally react for the loss

of his money since he does not even recognize its amount. Nakata lives on a small subsidy

that his brothers arrange for him to have because he is ‘mentally challenged’ (198). Nakata

thinks that the governor directly hands him the money ‘personally’ (Wirth 9), this means that

Nakata completely lacks the conception related to politics, for example, bureaucracy that is

responsible for such issues; or simply the fact that a governor cannot personally take such a

time consuming responsibility and rather hands it to specialized institutions. Respecting this

view, Rick Dolphijn proclaims the free quality that marks Nakata’s life describing him as

‘floating’ in the world without any relation to economic, social or political understanding

stating that they ‘play’ with these restrictions, as he lives freely from them which creates –for

sure- hindrances and difficulties, however, it did not discourage his delighted existence (18).

Being mentally disabled and losing his basic intelligence, Nakata does not understand

the world around him, because in many passages he displays the lack of understanding to

many features of this world which he considers as way too complex for him to process,

including language. This idea finds concurrence among analysts, for instance, Jason Wirth in

his article “The Self without Character: Melville’s The Confidence-Man and Murakami’s

Kafka on the Shore” (2018), he diagnoses how the characters in the tale suffer from deep

hollowness and emptiness. He describes Nakata as a self without character since he lost all his

memory mental capacity that he cannot even understand a concept like the Japan the country

or even the Earth (9). Wattanagun and Chotiudompant even relate Nakata’s isolation within

society with the linguistic incapability he displays or ignorance to customary fixed realities
 77

(29). Nakata in a way is unfamiliar with concepts that do not have an incarnation within the

material world, i.e., the abstract conception does not find a place within Nakata’s overall

understanding of the universe and this is embodied in the idea of time for example. Time

never creates an issue for Nakata; he does not even understand the meaning of time and only

associates daytime with the light and nighttime with the dark (Kafka on the Shore 79). That is,

Nakata feels the necessity to connect the abstract concept of time within the physical world,

otherwise he would neither grasp nor need the different time unites. Expressions like

proverbs, sayings or idioms are a group of words individuals regularly use in order to convey

a meaning that is not deducible from the literal meaning of these words Nakata faces

difficulty to process their meaning. In one of the conversations with the cat Kawamura she

addresses him using an expression: “Crouch on pavement, Kawara’s on trouble” (Kafka on

the Shore 111), Nakata remains astonished by the Cat’s words and cannot understand her

message. In another discussion between Nakata and Hoshino after being chased by the police

to investigate the murder of Koichi Tamura, Hoshino says the following to Nakata; “Take the

poison, take the plate” (321). He means that he starts his journey with Nakata and is, and

Nakata answers him as follows; “But if you eat a plate, you'll die. It’s not good for your teeth,

either. And it’ll hurt your throat” (321), So Nakata’s perception and interpretation to the

expressions he receives take a literal form of the group of words, otherwise he does not read

between the lines nor try to deduce the meaning or unriddle accordingly to the situation. One

of the situations that highlight Nakata’s inability to analyze a complicated situation is when he

finds himself facing a dog in the street, his thinking does not lead to any dangerous outcome,

moreover, because “The concept of death was beyond his powers of imagination. And pain

was something he wasn't aware of until he actually felt it” (113). Hence, the experience of

pain within Nakata’s interpretation is only a physical suffering and not a psychological one,

and unless felt bodily he does not actually process the term, and for sure the concept of death
 78

is unintelligible for him. When Hoshino tells Nakata that he never feels bored when they are

accompanying one another Nakata replies by “I’m not really sure 1 understand what being

bored means” (322). Since the state of boredom is an abstract feeling that does not belong to

the material world, Nakata is neither familiar with it nor can understand it. Therefore,

Nakata’s limited intellectual capability lowers the horizon of his understanding to complex

materials which makes his thinking circumscribed to only include the touchable milieu.

Unfortunately, Nakata’s permanently whipped away history leaves him with a narrowed field

of vision ‘linguistically’ that both language use and understanding is way too complex for him

to process.

It is revealed in Nakata’s storyline that he suffers from challenges because of his new

identity resulted from the shortcomings of traumatic physical abuse as well as losing himself

within another realm in war context. However, Nakata has other positive aspects including

speaking to and saving cats. Varnika Raizada in his paper “The Recluse as a Hero: A Study of

Haruki Murakami and Fyodor Dostoevsky” he analyzes how alienated individual serve a

certain mission in their lives, and actually fight for it with all their efforts (38). Nakata is

among these characters considering his love and passion towards cats, he serves as a

‘messiah’ for the them and never relinquishes this duty no matter what it costs him. His

affection towards them frequently makes him succeed in his mission of saving lost stray or

domestic cats. The murder Nakata commits is the deepest evidence of his humanity and

affection towards cats, because he kills Johnnie Walker who kills them to save many lives

(39). Paul Hert declares that Nakata, despite his incompetence, is needed within his social

circle because is a meditation between them and their goals. Kafka inters Nakata’s body in a

dream and uses it to kill his father, whereas Ms. Saeki waits for Nakata to help her abandon

the world of reality to the other world. Additionally, Nakata is the only character legitimate to

close the entrance stone that connects both worlds (163). Nakata in his journey with Hoshino
 79

inspires to find meaning behind his existence, Hoshino starts to evaluate his decisions,

relationships and job. In conclusion, Nakata’s limited knowledge and choices in life do not

make him a worthless person; from one hand he influences characters to better their lives,

from another hand he helps other to accomplish their goals.

Satoru Nakata is an incarnation of the extent to which a traumatic incident can have a

deep effect that alter an individual forevermore. When he was a child, he had tremendous

capacities that amazed his schoolteacher since he could effortlessly solve riddles or provide

opinions that pupils his age could not achieve. By the end of the Second World War, Nakata

falls a victim to the Rice Bowl Hill incident in which he receives physical abuse from his

teacher resulting in a mysterious collective coma of all the pupils. They all go back to their

normal lives, except Nakata who turns out to come back from another realm where he leaves

half of his shadow that contains his memory and intelligence. Nakata becomes a completely

new individual with new characteristics that counteract his old being. As a result, his

existence becomes determined within some illusionary walls imposed on him that limit his

life and potentials and make him imprisoned in his own little world. Flynn sates that he does

not know any other life outside of his own with no intention to better it (155). Everything

around Nakata becomes challenging for him to understand and process socially, linguistically,

psychologically, politically and even economically. He is left with an existential crisis of

questioning the purpose of his own identity. In contrast, Nakata’s presence in other

characters’ lives is required since their missions and turning points become fulfilled by him,

and his job as a savior of cat makes him enjoy life and highlights the human nature f creating

peaceful overall atmosphere.

In Kafka on the Shore, many psychological concepts interfere in the life of the two

protagonists, however, the journey is not similar. This chapter examines deeply and

individually the second protagonist traumas. It shows to what extent being aware of one’s
 80

psychological issues can destroy or save a human being. In Nakata situation the absence of

awareness has led to his death. Furthermore, the chapter explains that the unhealed wounds of

a victim can turn him into a criminal. Nakata’s death before the novel ends, not being able to

know himself fully is a sign of his environment ignorance with the massive influence of the

trauma on his life. The analysis of this chapter draws attention to the dangerous consequences

of trauma on the behavioral and mental capacities of the protagonist. Also, it highlights the

necessity of awareness when it comes to healing from trauma. The life of Nakata could be a

different one, he could be a better human only if he has been taking care of. His capacities

before November 7, 1944 does not match his actions after this date which confirms the huge

effect of Trauma.
 81

Conclusion

Knowing who you are without referring to the official name is a challenging task that

causes insomnia to the generations of today. All over the world, the modern individual

encounters an infinite number of psychological and social obstacles that make him unable to

construct an identity that does not fuse in the external affiliation. In Japan, the task is ten

times harder since the Japanese’s social circumstances are restricted by the bloody history and

the political crises. Consequently, these circumstances have led to a lost generation with a lot

of emotional and mental problems. For this reason, the country contemporary authors have

been using their writing to discusses the identity construction phenomena in their complicated

society, emphasizing on its dimensions on the Japanese individual. Through projecting the

identity of the self and society depending on various techniques, the Japanese authors joins

the world literature in describing personality formulation, disintegration, growth and death.

Haruki Murakami is an author who has dedicated himself to be a major voice for the

disaffected youth of Japan’s contemporary era for the last two decades. His attractive style

and detaching messages had always aimed to create a perfect world for those who do not

recognize themselves. For two decades, Murakami’s career in fiction and non-fictional

writing has been characterized by giving full attention to the individual independency. He

offers a third choice for all Japanese adults that are stuck with the option of joining the group

or staying in isolation. Murakami’s works became his only tool to promote to the concept of

individual identity runs counter the dominant social structure. Indeed, the protagonists of

Murakami novels tend to be in permanent search of the self. Most of his characters are

passive, and thus they are frustratingly devoid of real identity. Yet all of them seek that

identity by rooting about in their internal minds, recognizing that the inner mind is the

ultimate source of self and identity.

 82

In his novel Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami chooses to build a fictional world

to have enough freedom to spot the ugly reality the Japanese live. The work largely discusses

the identity formulation process through recounting the life trip of two unique protagonists.

Kafka Tamura and Nakata Satoru are two different characters that experience the feeling of

detachment in their community because of their inability of recognizing who they are.

Therefore, they decide to transform their isolation and loneliness to overcome the greatest

trails such as Oedipus complex and trauma to become self-reliant. Murakami proves that

isolation and self-reliance can be a source of strength, healing, and enlightenment if it is used

in understanding the psychological issues and overcome their negative consequences. The

moment Kafka has strengthened his mind and body he overcomes his fears and toxic

environment and when Nakata learns slowly how to survive in life after losing his memories

he became a hero of himself. On the whole, the novel is a life guide to those who still in

search of themselves.

The first chapter is a socio-historical background of the novel that contextualizes the

issue of identity within the Japanese society as well as literature. Japan during the Edo period

was labeled by political peace as well as economic prosperity, and it maintained that status

quo during the First World War. However, it was involved politically and militarily in the

Second World War which led to its defeat, and consequently the rise of culpability, sense of

loss and sorrow to losing the national identity culturally and politically. The US occupation

that is followed by the economic boom in japan proved that there is a tax for the glamorous

life, because Japan’s traditions and established principles of collectiveness are replaced by

generation that believes in individuality and modernity. Furthermore, identity quest remains

an issue in the Japanese contemporary society. The chapter later represents how literature

mirrors life and society by displaying this issue of identity tackled by different literary figures.

Jiro Osaraji, Kobo Abe, Oe Kenzaburo and Kazuo Ishiguro perfectly depict selfhood
 83

experience and the struggle of defining oneself from different perspectives. These authors

shaped personalities that suffered self-isolation, loneliness, self-observing and dive within

their inner world for the realization of individuality. These novelists perfectly enriched the

literary canon by drawing a link between the social agony for the search of identity and the

fictional world making it a flawless illustration.

The second chapter represents the first analytical chapter of this thesis. The first part

tackles the relationship between Haruki Murakami and his work Kafka on the Shore, it

discusses his life experiences as well as his unconscious mind in order to reveal the source of

the literary work from a psychoanalytic perspective. Kafka on the Shore proves to be a

product of sublimation to the author’s painful experiences that is incorporated with his

creativity and inventiveness which finally results in the creation of an influential and

successful literary work. The second part of the chapter takes a psychoanalytic focus to track

Kafka’s process of psychological development towards the completion of his growth and

maturity. The basic constituents that contribute to Kafka’s identity fabric are Oedipus

complex and dreams which are Freudian concepts used for the analysis. The oedipal journey

as well as the experience of dreams of Kafka demonstrate that it is the only pathway through

which he can reach his new identity that is characterized by recovery and growth. Kafka’s

failure of identification with his father conducts him to perform patricide. The attraction

towards his mother results in intercourse with her that in turn results in the oedipal fate to

actually be realized. His dreams have the power of expressing his sensuality for both his

mother and sister, and in turn be the guider for his decision of intercourse with them. By the

end of the story, Kafka establishes traits as self-acceptance and approval to the fate he

previously eloped, along with forgiveness to his mother for desertion and responsibility for

his actions. Finally, he decides to go back to his hometown in order to have a new beginning

to his life.
 84

The third chapter shifts the concentration of the analysis to the second protagonist

Nakata Satoru. His life stops at the age of nine when he was at a school trip during the end of

the Second World War. The analysis uses a sequential order of the protagonist’s lifetime in

order to highlight the depth of the consequences of traumatic experiences and the extent to

which they negatively influence and control an individual. Accordingly, the traumatic

incidents of violence and war he undergoes profoundly impact his brain causing memory loss

along with disrupted behaviors and identity. As a result, the exposure to violence from his

school teacher becomes internalized in Nakata's brain and sabotages his behaviors which is

expressed in his aggressive action of killing Johnnie Walker. Amnesia makes Nakata stuck in

the present because he has no past to go back to, hence he experiences a deep sense of

emptiness. Besides, the deficiency of the intellectual faculty causes a lack of awareness to all

the political, economic psychological and even linguistic aspects of his surroundings. Trauma

unquestionably deprives him from planning and constructing a normal life, even so, it is

undeniable that the presence of Nakata enriches the plot of the novel and helps many other

characters fulfill their deeds.

This dissertation, that is titled “(Re)construction of Identity in Haruki Murakami’s

Kafka on the Shore” is valuable for the future studies and literature specifically. It submits a

meaningful vision about the concept of identity construction in the Japanese literature to

understand the background of Haruki Murakami techniques and references. Equally, it aims to

analyze the massive influence of psychological factors such as the Oedipus complex, Dreams,

and Trauma on the protagonist’s attitude on daily obstacles. Hence, it features the relationship

between the psychological problems and the external action to stress the necessity of healing

the internal bruisers to have a healthy human. Also, it offers the academics the chance to have

a close look to the dominating aspects that control the identity construction in this era.

Furthermore, in the upcoming researches this study can provide accurate information that
 85

helps in extending the cercal of researches toward the Japanese literary production. Finally, it

will also be considered as significant study that explores the impact of psychological factors

on the two protagonist and the shift in their personality.

 86

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‫ملخص‬

‫أخيرا بناء دولة جديدة بعد خسائرها الفادحة في الحربين العالميتين لم يكن على الدولة‬
‫ً‬ ‫عندما اقرت اليابان‬

‫التعامل مع الركود االقتصادي فقط ولكن أيضًا مع مشاكلها االجتماعية‪ .‬التغييرات المختلفة التي عاشها اليابانيون منذ نهاية‬

‫فترة "إيدو" جعلتهم ينسون مبادئهم التقليدية ويلتزمون بمفهوم الجماعية لتعريف أنفسهم‪ .‬اآلن في الوقت الذي تظهر فيه هذه‬

‫األمة نفسها للعالم‪ ،‬يبقا فقدان هوية الفرد الياباني في استمرار‪ .‬وبرغم من تمتع المجتمع باالستقرار العام‪ ،‬يكافح الشاب‬

‫الياباني يوميًا مع العوامل االجتماعية والنفسية لبناء هويته‪ .‬في ظل هذه الظروف‪ ،‬أصبح هاروكي موراكامي أحد أفضل‬

‫الكتاب الذين عالجوا قضية الهوية بعمق خاصة في روايته كافكا على الشاطئ (‪ .)2005‬لهذا السبب تهدف هذه الدراسة إلى‬

‫عقدة البحث في مسألة بناء الهوية من منظور نفسي‪ .‬الهدف الرئيسي من وراءها هو استكشاف تأثير العوامل النفسية مثل‬

‫أوديب‪ ،‬تفسير األحالم والصدمات في بناء وتدمير أبطال الرواية‪ .‬كما تسعى إلى تسليط الضوء على ضرورة معالجة‬

‫العيوب الداخلية لإلنسان يحظى شخصية سلمية‪.‬‬